Mobile Ads, the Game experience

[Fred Grott]

Back before Zynga's rise I had submitted a start-up application to a
FB app start-up-incubator and my premise was that the game app could
become the brand advertisement. while the 20%-80% Mobile ad return has
not been solved yet the mobile app as a a mobile ad for a brand as a
game might have some interesting start-up potential.

First, mobile user intent is much harder than web user intent because:

1. Not all data is easily associated with a location.
2. Not all user actions are intents, some are past intents which are
not mobile ad monetize-able
3. Small screen space decreases the amount of ad inventory that can be
brought to bear and the ads delivered.

My premise is that lets throw out the whole display ad and ext ad..go
all in and make the mobile app the ad. The vehicle for this is that
casual game with possibly in-app virtual goods that get awarded via
merchant goods or services purchases.

Its a very different start-up platform. But it does have some
similarities with display ads and other media advertising as far as
cost structure. But it is a different ad vehicle in that it is not
directed towards direct or indirect user intents but towards using
brand awareness to sell goods and services of the brands in an
indirect and direct manners via the virtual goods awarded via
purchases in real-life.

For a non established brand you would reverse it in that it would not
be virtual goods tied to in-store purchases but using the game to tell
the brand goods/services story. Usually telling those stories tied to
a cultural trend works wonders, remember the original Apple Ads?
Except in this case you are using a game story and actions as the ad
palette.

This is just one aspect of where with mobile you have to throw out
everything out and re-invent things in the mobile user context and
experience.

This is what mobile gaming could become as the number of non-casual
gaming is quite small but the numbers of casual mobile game users is
quite large.







--
Fred Grott
Android Developer
Blog: http://shareme.github.com