WHEN THE APPS CHANGED THE ADS
This Wisdom.Applied Wednesday, we’re looking at Apple’s latest release and what it means for the advertising game.
Did Apple even imagine they would drastically change the advertising game when they introduced the iPhone back in 2007?
Just two years after its release, smartphone users had completely altered the way cell phone users searched for information, opting to use apps verses browsers. Couple that trend with the recession, and developers saw marketers flock to apps to meet consumers; brands, however, still weren’t making massive mobile impacts—not when compared to TV, anyway.
As Steve Jobs put it back in 2010, television ads evoke emotion more effectively than mobile. While that rang true four years ago, today–when done right–mobile ads have the ability to not only evoke emotion but to also drive interaction through platforms like iAd and AdMob.
With its sights on becoming a real player in the mobile advertising world, Apple joined the game later that year when Jobs announced the iAd platform: an in-app ad platform exclusive for iOS devices.
Jobs originally envisioned iAd as a way for app developers to make money while keeping iStore apps at a low cost or free for users. The tech giant maintained that intention as developers receive 70% of the profit (the other 30% goes to Apple).
For users, the beauty of iAd is that ads are not intrusive to the users app experience. When clicking on an ad, a full screen version appears on their screens as opposed to opening in Safari. In the ad, users can interact or return to the app at anytime.
While iAd originally seemed like a promising venture for Apple, its enormous seven figure campaign rates among other things kept the service from really taking off. In fact, in 2011, ad sales were only $38 million.
In the span of two years, during which Apple lowered the minimum campaign budget to $50 with the release of iAd Workbench, its iAd revenue increased to $260 million in 2013.
Yesterday, Apple implemented several changes to their iAd Workbench platform, and the changes are no jokes. In addition for developers being able to run short videos (thirty to sixty-second ads) within their ads, the ads can direct users to a separate websites or iTunes content. With this update, all users need to access the ad platform is an Apple ID. After that, developers can have their ad campaigns launched within 24-48 hours.
Certainly these updates not only allow smaller players from local stores to nonprofits to take part in the iAd benefits, but it highlights, yet again, the need for every brand to create content that’s relevant for its target. The iAd platform can literally put brands at their target consumers’ fingertips. Now, it’s the advertisers jobs to make sure the content lives up to what Steve Jobs envisioned: ads drive emotion and interaction.
Cover Photo Source: 1000 Words / Shutterstock.com
