Tag: mobile marketing news

This, according to the execs at both The Weather Channel as well as at Criteo.

Execs from both The Weather Company – the operator of The Weather Channel – and from Criteo – an adtech platform – believe that as much as mobile marketing is growing in popularity and presents considerable opportunity for monetization of a website or an app, the ads that are used over this channel leave a great deal to be desired.

These two execs have agreed that it is primarily the format of the ads that needs to improve.

They have stated that the mobile marketing ad format continues to be riddled with flawed and time will require it to improve. That said, this is not quite an encouraging statement considering the fact that the channel has been heavily used, worldwide. It is also a rather grim statement considering that Criteo is a considerable buyer of m-commerce ads, and the Weather Channel is a large seller due to the great popularity of its app.

That said, despite the current statements, they do feel that mobile marketing will be the place to be in the long run.

In a recent interview with a business publication, Greg Coleman, the president of Criteo, said “Do mobile ads suck? Maybe, maybe not.” He added that if you are able to encourage a viewer to click an ad, which he called, making an “ad dance”, then you can assume “that it doesn’t suck.”

In order to be able to make better mobile marketing ads, according to Coleman, there is a requirement for the industry to look into the ads that have been made by curatives that have developed a smartphone based background and who have what is referred to as Coleman as the mobile “DNA”.

At the same time, The Weather Company’s chief global revenue officer, Curt Hecht, has expressed a different angle of view regarding the direction that mobile marketing was taking. In his opinion, considering the way that things currently are, the methods that are used for purchasing and selling ads over smartphones and tablets are what he called “a complete mess”. For a company that sells ad space on its apps, this isn’t the best type of statement to make.

The company has made yet another purchase that has moved it further into the smartphone advertising sphere.

IBM has just announced that its purchasing spree has continued with its acquisition of Xtify, a mobile marketing company, which it has obtained for an undisclosed sum.

The company explained that the deal would give digital advertisers better interaction opportunities.

IBM explained that it would help mobile marketing companies to be able to increase their ability for interaction with consumers over mobile platforms through the use of in-app capabilities. This involves options such as running competitions, alerting customers regarding new promotions, and adding content to the apps themselves. The technology will be available within the Smarter Commerce offerings suite from IBM.

The acquisition of Xtify brings IBM mobile marketing for a number of sizeable customers.

Along with the purchase of mobile marketing opportunities with Xtify, IBM will also be receiving a number of that smaller company’s notable customers, which include 20th Century Fox and Disney Stores.

The vice president for digital marketing at IBM, Kevin Bishop, explained that the track record at Xtify for meeting agendas for mobile marketing is an ideal complement to the portfolio of offerings that are already available at IBM. He said that “With the increase of mobile devices, organisations across all industries are anxious to develop a mobile approach to engage their customers. The acquisition of Xtify provides new ways for our clients to foster a direct, one-to-one communication channel with their customers.”

The CEO of Xtify, Josh Rochlin, stated that he felt that bringing his company into IBM will provided them with the chance to meet a far wider range of customer needs than has ever been possible for that business. He said that the capability for mobile marketing and messaging at Xtify, in combination with the cloud infrastructure and analytics at IBM will give marketers a tremendous arsenal of rich content at with a global reach for informing and influencing a growing number of consumers who regularly use smartphones and tablets.

He went on to point out that the best time to provide mobile marketing content to customers is at exactly the time and place that they are seeking it. This acquisition greatly enhances ad relevancy.