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Mobile Marketers: Apple’s iPhone May Speed Mobile Ad Medium

Digital marketing executives are saying that Apple’s release of its new video iPod/cell phone combo could transform the mobile advertising field.

The new Wi-Fi-enabled phone, previewed at MacWorld, allows users to download and play music and videos, use Yahoo and Google search, read and send email, and make phone calls (via a deal with Cingular). With its wide, 3.5 inch diagonal screen, the phone also offers new promise for wireless video ads, writes MediaPost.

Gene Keenan, vp of mobile services for digital marketing network Isobar, says the Apple iPhone could be the killer app that “sparks a revolution,” while Tom Burgess, CEO of Third Screen Media, calls the iPhone the “beachhead for converging mobile devices,” and says that, “There’s no doubt that it is a step in the right direction for a more robust marketing medium.”

Burgess believes the phone will need at least 5 million users/month to bring in big ad dollars. It may take awhile to amass that number of users, considering the starting price is a hefty $499. A senior analyst for eMarketer, however, says the device contains a number of user-friendly features that will appeal to buyers, particularly early adapters. For example, the phone allows users to scroll through voice messages visually, in the same way they can currently scroll through music and email.
Apple itself believes it can sell 10 million of the phones next year.

The phone is also expected to speed adoption of mobile music and video downloading - something that has been slow to take place. In Q3 of last year, for example, only about 10.5 percent of cell phone subscribers had music players on their handsets, while only 2 million had downloaded full tracks (per mobile research firm Telephia).