A recent study has found that users of Apple's iPhone are more likely to recall mobile ads – including mobile display, standard text message (SMS), audio, picture or video messages (MMS), and mobile TV and video ads – than non-iPhone users.

The higher recall rates are largely attributable to the iPhone’s touch-screen interface, which is promising news for marketers in light of the proliferation of touch-screen smartphones by other mobile manufacturers, including the BlackBerry Storm, Palm Pre and Google Android. These findings confirm that the proliferation of smartphones has the potential to bring mobile advertising to the next level.

Demographics

The iPhone is ranked as the second-highest-selling smartphone in 2009 after the BlackBerry. Apple is currently rated as the number 1 smartphone brand, according to J.D. Power and Associates’ customer satisfaction index. Although Nielsen estimates that only 5.9% of US households owned or rented an iPhone in Q3 2008, that number is growing steadily. Targeting smartphone users looks like a smart tactic; iPhone users tend to be young, tech savvy, and primed to buy gadgets.

While it is no longer the largest US carrier (with 78.2 million subscribers vs. Verizon’s 86.6 million), AT&T boasts the largest number of smartphone users (1/3 of it post-paid customers). Twice as many smartphone users are said to have chosen AT&T over any other U.S. wireless carrier. AT&T has announced a new smartphone ad campaign highlighting its smartphone leadership, which will feature a businessman e-mailing with his boss and sending files on a bus that transforms into a hectic workplace. The message is that smartphone users are confident they can always stay connected with AT&T. Last year the carrier’s humorous smartphone ad campaign, “Get a Sven,” was a hit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDVGrzqf4go

Monetizing Free Apps

Despite criticism that free iPhone apps are much harder to monetize when compared to paid apps, one company is claiming otherwise. AdWhirl, an iPhone-based advertising platform, says mobile ad impressions and overall revenue has been steadily increasing and will soon match that of paid apps.

AdWhirl, who launched in April, has already signed over 10% of the top 50 applications in the App Store and is serving 250 million ad impressions per month.  AdWhirl is already reporting that it sees between 3-5 ad impressions per user interaction, which makes the cost per impression is quite low. From a revenue standpoint, it is smarter to provide an app free of charge in order to spread usage as wide as possible, and then monetize with targeted and optimized mobile display advertising that ensures on-going revenues instead of an early surge followed by dwindling earnings, as is the case with paid apps.

The Future of Mobile Computing

Rumors abound that like Samsung and Nokia, Apple may be working on a “tablet-phone” (to be released during the first half of 2010) – a hybrid device would fill the gap between the iPod Touch and the MacBook, with a more robust operating system than the iPhone. The tablet’s interface would draw users to iTunes, the App Store, and other software and Internet services. It will be interesting to watch how mobile computing devices impact mobile marketing in the near future…

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For more information you can contact the author at emma@maravedis-bwa.com

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