There are very attractive marketing opportunities presented by mobile devices but these are limited by a few current realities, the most prominent of them being the structure of many plans being limited as far as data.
In the absence of that limitation and assuming individuals with mobile devices were amenable (another hurdle that could be incented as a positive option), demographic and preference data unique to each individual combined with geographic location could be very lucrative for certain kinds of businesses.
You could literally pull in fairly well qualified sales prospects with a high likelihood of purchase via passing traffic with an offer that is appealing, timely and immediate (think coupon), or market to an obscure interest within a set geographic radius via a mobile blast.
I’m suspicious of Google and don’t particularly like them, but I wouldn’t count them out just yet. It’s just that they’re still stuck in the old static, traditional advertising mindset, counting eyeballs and clickthrough. A lot of fraud there and the medium is not optimal due to the size of the screen as you note.
They need to realize that they are direct marketers. An extremely appealing offer can be created in text alone, it’s been done for close to a century in print. I can assure you that they’ll go down if they fail to realize this. At least one of their primary competitors does.
yes hyper targeted advertizing would work a lot better on smartphones. So a Google or Apple has every incentive to track compile store regurgitate to the right people your internet surfing habits. Just last week it seems Apple could not resist tracking iPhone users again even after it pledged not to.
This shows Apple likes what you have to say about advertizing (just my 2¢ Worth)
Apple controls its smartphone Eco-systsem while google has an inferior position. Google needs to do a real buccaneer partnership with Samsung or LG, putting out co-branded smartphones,then it could be like Apple and do the hyper targeted advertising