Former DoubleClick Exec Rains on Mobile Ad Parade

Amid the multi-billion dollar five-year mobile ad forecasts there is skepticism here and there. One source of some of that skepticism is former DoubleClick CEO Kevin Ryan. According to a piece appearing in the the Wall Street Journal, Ryan said that he didn’t think mobile advertising was going to be as big as everyone is predicting:

But Kevin Ryan, the former CEO of online-ad company DoubleClick, said he doesn’t see mobile advertising delivering on those promises soon. Mr. Ryan, who left DoubleClick in 2005 and is the founder and chairman of high-end retailer Gilt Groupe, said that he has long been asked about mobile advertising and that “the real answer” is that he doesn’t think mobile is going to be as big as people think — although he learned very quickly that “the answer that people want to hear is that mobile is going to be huge.”

“Even today … there is almost no mobile advertising,” he said at an Internet, media and telecom conference held by financial-services firm Jefferies. “The screen is just too small,” even on many of today’s smart phones. Mr. Ryan said the iPad is the first mobile device he’s seen that could deliver compelling advertising to consumers.

The business of forecasting ad spending is largely an academic exercise. What really matters is whether there’s an audience and whether ads in the channel are effective.

We know from many different sources, including InsightExpress and DynamicLogic, that mobile display advertising outperforms its older online cousin handily.  

We also know that there are roughly 70 to 75 million users of the mobile Internet and that people are searching, using LBS and checking product pricing and reviews at or near the point of sale. Accordingly, there’s considerable “commercial activity” (though little or no “e-commerce”) happening on the mobile Internet.

I wrote yesterday about novel in-app targeting between retailers. Placecast’s geo-fencing ShopAlerts have also proven highly successful for early adopter-retailers. 

We know that SMS marketing helps “close the loop” and make traditional media more measurable and interactive. We also know that it’s a channel almost unique in its capacity to reach teens and younger audiences.

It’s true that ad dollars take longer to show up than consumer audiences; that was equally the case with the Internet, and still is to a large degree today. And it’s also true that the most effective uses of mobile advertising and marketing may turn out to be things like couponing, mobile loyalty and CRM functions, rather than pure awareness advertising. However marketers are still testing and trying to determine the most effective uses of mobile and how to best integrate it into overall campaigns.

It would be a mistake to see the mobile channel as ineffective or otherwise ease off the accelerator because of articles like the one above or skepticism about mobile ad revenue potential. That entirely misses the point.

Mobile consumers are already there, mobile commercial activity is there. Marketers that delay or turn away will simply miss the opportunity.