The Missed Opportunity With Mobile

Most marketers look to the mobile channel as a way to connect with their consumers who are on the go. It's a way to stay connected with their audience 24/7, regardless of their location. You can reach them while they're in your store. You can hit them while they're waiting for the bus. Or while they're in line at the coffee shop. Or while they're at the playground sneaking a look at the gossip sites while the children frolic. And that's smart. Mobile is good at that. In many scenarios, mobile fills a void. It reaches people in certain situations that used to be completely free of marketing messages. As long as all sides of the ecosystem (publisher and advertiser) remain focused on delivering value to people in those scenarios, then the sudden appearance of marketing messages may not be a bad thing. In fact, it may be welcomed by many consumers.

To address this "on-the-go" consumer, content producers, app developers, and marketers tend to pursue two key categories:

1. Utilities: Things like communication (speech to text, for example), social networking, maps, weather, movie times, restaurant reviews, location-relevant coupons/offers, and so on.
2. Snack-sized entertainment: Video clips, news, sports scores, games, e-reading, music, camera fun (you know you love IncrediBooth and Hipstamatic), etc.

Again, that's smart. These are the kinds of things people need when they're on the go. But, here is an important note of caution: to focus entirely on that "out and about" consumer misses a significant opportunity. It turns out that nearly 40 percent of time spent on the mobile Internet happens at home. And another nearly 20 percent happens at work. In other words, almost 60 percent of time spent on the mobile Internet happens when there's presumably a Web-connected PC available. Yet, people are choosing to go to mobile first, foregoing the PC in favor of the small form factor and convenience of the mobile device.