Well, the time goes by and the promising prodigy which mobile advertising is, is still not living up to its potential. Researches continue to release reports forecasting annual growth and saying that next year it will finally hit the jackpot. The problem is, we had the same reports five years ago. The fact that 60% of world’s population have mobile phones and still many companies are hesitating to get into this advertising field may raise the question of whether they are living under a rock or not. They are not, in fact.

Blogosphere now discusses that the only way to improve mobile advertising is to concentrate on the soft ways of delivering ads, bearing in mind consumer privacy. Of course, the very nature of mobile phone as something private should not be forgotten or privacy violations may put this industry to end before it even sets off in a proper way. Of course you need to think of scenario where a potential customer gets engaged, becomes interactively involved and receive relevant information. Of course all these things are essential for making successful mobile ad campaign.

These conditions for mobile advertising to finally thrive have been repeated for quite some time, and by now we would’ve seen some improvement which manifests itself in numbers of companies who successfully used mobile for advertising. Sure, they are and were companies who benefited from it. Strangely it is always mega companies like Coca-Cola or Adidas. Here is the list of top mobile marketing campaigns from 2006. As you can see, again, it were big names like Nike, American Express and NBC. Also, as written in that post they used these key success factors:

• Relevant to the consumer
• Welcome invitation to participate
• Entertaining
• Drives a specific action
• Integrated where appropriate
• Connects what was previously disconnected
• Simplicity

That was four years ago, but still in 2010 these factors are presented as something that companies “don’t get” in order for mobile marketing to blossom. Maybe there is something else?

Look at Google Ads. In the first quarter of 2010 Google earned 30% of its revenue with this service. Every person, every company, no matter how small it is, using it, can start advertising in the matter of minutes. It is highly accessible.

To start advertising on mobile phones you have to go to mobile operators. A startup of a mobile campaign requires much effort and expenses. You can’t spend five bucks and test it for a while to see how it works, like you do it at Google Ads. For small and middle sized business it is much easier to go for paper, radio or TV advertising. So, maybe in order for mobile advertising to breakthrough it has to be available to a wider audience? Maybe that’s the reason it makes uncertain steps every year?