Mobile Insights

We believe the first 10 years of the Internet were a warm-up for what’s about to happen. – Mary Meeker, General Parter at KPCB

According to Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers partner Mary Meeker, there are 1.5 billion smartphone users in the world. In other words, that’s one smartphone for every five people in the world. The now famous annual Internet trends report 2013 has been released at D11 executive conference. We previously covered Google I/O 2013 HERE.

These mobile users are also spending more time on their smartphone. Time spent on mobile is rising fast, mobile traffic makes up 15 percent of Internet traffic over all.

Another number that caught our attention is that the typical smartphone user reaches his phone 150 times a day on average.

Don’t get me wrong but it doesn’t mean you have 150 chances per day to catch people’s attention.

All these numbers tell us that mobile will continue to grow fast but mobile advertising is still small. Isn’t it a big opportunity there?

Why this gap between mobile ad spending and time spent on mobile?

People are spending 12 percent of their time on mobile devices, and mobile ad spending is only at 3 percent, which is a little fraction of digital ad spending. In addition, most mobile ads are just web search and display ads viewed on mobile.

The main reason that comes to mind is the size of the screen. Mobile users don’t want to receive intrusive ads.

This little smart device is reinventing the connection between companies and their customers. That’s what marketers need to understand. Mobile advertising cannot be like traditional advertising. Yes I’m looking at you ugly flashy banners.

It no longer makes economic sense to send an advertising message to the many in hopes of persuading the few – Lawrence Light, Former Global Chief Marketing Officer, McDonalds.

Closing the gap with a new approach of Mobile Marketing

Closing the gap by throwing money in advertising makes no sense. Mobile marketing set new practices and guidelines that traditional marketers need to understand. The first one is: ask for permission, protect privacy.

The second point is to understand that it’s also about context. Contextual marketing is marketing communications and customer experience that is aligned with the context of the consumer. It is a function of time, device, location and attention.

Spending energy to understand the audience and carefully crafting a message that resonates with them means making a commitment of time and discipline to the process. – Nancy Duarte, President & CEO Duarte Design

We already wrote about Mobile Advertising Trends You Need to Know About.

The amount of digital information created, tagged, and shared is booming, and might quadruple again by 2015.

It’s not a surprise anymore the world is going mobile and Mary Meeker’s report highlighting the Internet Trends 2013 showcases the big opportunity this burgeoning channel offers brands and marketers across all industries. Creating great user experiences by thinking through the customer journey is all about unlocking effective engagement.

Effective engagement is inspired by the empathy that develops simply by being human. – Brian Solis, Principal Analyst at Altimeter

If you want to read more about all Internet Trends 2013, download the +100 Slides of Internet Trends 2013 Report: KPCB Internet Trends 2013 by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

By @VandyKhamsay