The importance of politeness
Why current mobile ad formats are set for failure
These days a lot has been written about the tremendous potential of mobile advertising. One cannot deny that sooner or later advertisers will inevitably follow the consumers onto the mobile channel and allocate lofty budgets for reaching users on mobile devices. But the full potential of this new media will only be unleashed when the right advertising format is employed.
Currently utilized formats are not only a direct and poor translation from the digital display world of conventional web, but they are in stark violation of some basic principle for effective media. In particular, they don’t take into account any of the rules of the Media Equation, and specifically Grice’s Maxims. Here is what I mean:
Quality: Speakers (advertisers) should say things that are true. Mobile users are barraged daily with ads of questionable quality that indiscriminately take advantage of native technologies leading to poor user experience. In addition to inconveniently small size, ads are disrupting in-app user experience, crashing the hosting application, clicks are failing or lead out of the hosting app, or ads simply don’t respond in a natural way of interaction expected by the mobile user. Users react to such units with utter frustration and dislike, and the message is ineffective, if not completely lost.
Quantity: Each speaker (advertiser) should contribute only what the conversation demands, not too much or too little.On a small screen real estate, such as the the one prevalent in mobile, taking away even small portion of it for a purpose different than the main user experience, is intrusive and perceived as having an uninvited 3rd party saying too much when nobody wants to listen. Users gradually adapt by becoming blind and deaf to this unwanted messages. Some advertisers try to get around this undesirable effect by pushing “unavoidable” ad units, such as interstitial or un-skippable video, which only further infuriates users. The imbalance in such media conversation is obvious and results in ineffective communication with the end user.
Relevance:What people(advertisers) say should clearly relate to the purpose of the conversation. Like in a conventional conversation, people expect any participating party to contribute relevant information that fits and/or adds to the main thread. Achieving this in the context of a mobile application proves difficult for current ad formats for two main reasons:
- Prevalent pattern of mobile media usage is one of short and frequent data “snacking”, while users are trying to extract the most utility value while on the go (tablets not included). Any message not part of the main user experience is distracting, irrelevant and unwelcome, thus rendered ineffective.
- Majority of mobile ads content (banners, interstitials, video) is 3rd party generated and provided, with very low likelihood of organically fitting in the main application content the user intends to consume. Native ads are trying to overcome this limitation by using formats that blend in the hosting app and primary content, but still lack relevance to the overall conversation they are injecting the advertiser’s message into. The irrelevance problem is exacerbated by the limited space and attention span pertinent to mobile channel. The user is fooled only for a brief period of time before building ad-immunity as part of the natural tendency to filter out for the most apposite information when consuming content in brief non-consecutive periods.
An irrelevant ad message tends to be ignored and completely pushed out of the main conversation.
Clarity: Contribution to an interaction should not be obscure.Driven by small size ad spaces or simply not understanding the mobile medium, advertisers tend to present highly obscure marketing messages. Users are inundated with misleading ads, ads with no clear advertiser, ads with sub-par “questionable” content. Attempt to use flashiness and ambiguity to attract attention only disappoints and frustrates mobiles users, while invading their personal limited in space and time mobile real estate. Users quickly tune out and abandon any attempt at a conversation with the advertiser.
In summary of all of the above points, mobile advertisers should put more thought and effort in better understanding the very nature of the mobile channel and its users. They should try to offer messages that are relevant and organically weaved into the hosting content and context. Doing so can only increase the chances of getting some of the already limited user attention and provide the value consumers normally associate with the mobile medium. After all a little politeness goes a long way.
