Things that mobile marketers overlook in creating effective campaigns

Kaizad Pardiwalla

With the pace at which mobile advertising is growing, it is evident that the ads on mobile are working well for the marketers. Consumers are obviously noticing mobile ads and finding them informative. At the core of effective mobile advertising, like any other format is powerful creative – idea and execution. Kaizad Pardiwalla, President & COO, The 120 Media Collective expresses, “Creative process for any piece of communication should revolve around the creative idea. That holds true for mobile advertising too. Having said that we must consider size of the device and limitation of space and therefore design communication specially for mobile and not just adapt the creative to a smaller size. The things to keep in mind are: a) Few words and larger fonts. Ideally not more than three words per frame, b) Large and strong CTA, c) Use GIFs d) Mobile is highly interactive through the touch screen, use that!”

Experts agree that translating broadcast and even desktop creative to mobile might not be a good idea. The small size of mobile, and the way media is consumed on mobile warrants a different creative approach. Unique advertising but without any dissonance with the entire marketing campaign for the brand. Rohan Mehta, Socialkinnect elucidates it well, “Dimensions of mobile screen are different from any other medium and the screen is significantly smaller. Users tend to scroll faster on mobile than a laptop, so for mobile, we prefer to focus on static rather than gifs or HTML banners. We also prefer to add contextual text based on the platforms or user behaviour for that app, to help get the users to focus faster. Needless to say, brand association must be high for better recall. One should ideally pick platforms and ad units that seamlessly blend with the user's experience, are non-intrusive but get the job done.”     

Harshil Karia

It is a given now that traditional ad formats do not deliver optimum value on mobile platforms. Does this, however, imply that creative for mobile advertising has no reference point?  Harshil Karia, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Schbang corrects us, “It is not very different from traditional advertising – as far as the creative thought process is concerned. However, nuances of the medium must be kept in mind – you cannot interrupt the consumer for too long. You also don't want to have your ad receive the feared 'skip' or scroll treatment. Hence, the narrative has to be attention seeking and snappy.”

Vasuta Agarwal

The creation of an effective mobile ad has a similar anatomy as the creation of effective advertising for traditional media – consumer connect comes first. Good looking ads which are visually appealing and fit the format well but do not connect with consumers fail to deliver. Vasuta Agarwal, VP and GM, India and South Asia, InMobi takes pains to explain, “Underlying principle when building creative for mobile is blending elements of both - Left brain (creative) and right brain (analytical). The creative process for mobile, like traditional advertising, can be divided into three major buckets - Context, Conceptualisation and Execution.”  She adds, “As the first step, one should get a clear understanding of brand/product ethos & objective and the target audience’ mobile behaviour.  As a next step, the creative teams need to immerse themselves in a brainstorming session along with brand and technology teams. At this stage, idea is to marry innovative/latest technologies, the brand objective/goals and mobile creative expertise and zero in on creative and technology that works best in the context. Execution does not only involve creating the ad campaign but also extensive testing to achieve the desired user experience and business metrics. Even after go-live, a frame-by-frame performance of the creative should be analysed to optimise. This includes enhancements in the location of the CTA, building better interactivity or enhancing messaging.”

As mobile comes to forefront as an effective medium of brand storytelling, there is increased focus on creatives that work on the medium. We discuss the creative aspect of mobile advertising at length at TMMS 2018.