Mobile is driving behaviour change, says Bowman

Over 160 members of the media and marketing industries attended the two-day digital symposium, held 25 - 26 March 2009 at Spier near Stellenbosch. Opened by Adrian Hewlett, founder and MD of Habari, he said the event has seen steady growth, from just 20 delegates at the first symposium five years ago, to more than 160 at the 2009 event.

Habari Media's mission is to present unbiased online information to the media and marketing industry, and to this end, the symposium had the simple aim of sharing the latest online developments and international trends and bringing further education to the market. With an informal mix of business owners, marketers and agencies represented, the other aim was naturally also to do some networking and have some fun…

Tom Bowman breaks the ice

Tom Bowman, VP in charge of international advertising sales for BBC.com, is a heavyweight in the world of digital advertising, having worked for some of the largest names in the industry over the past 12 years, including being the launch sales director for Yahoo! in the UK and leading the global sales team at MSN. At BBC.com, he is in charge of driving advertising sales for the BBC.com portal in overseas markets, with 2008 seeing the signing up of such notable blue chip advertisers as Airbus, Cathay Pacific, Nokia, Lexus and Rolex. So, when Bowman talks, you would be well advised to listen.

The cut and thrust of Bowman's talk was about looking forward and thinking ahead. He impressed upon the audience the inescapable truth of Moore's Law - the certainty, generally speaking, that technology will continue to improve at its usual rapid pace, while the attendant costs are not likely to increase.

Specifically speaking, the law refers to a paper by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, in which he pointed out that the transistor density of integrated circuits doubles about every 18 months (a useful fact to reassure us in these economically uncertain times). Bowman mentioned that in 1971, there were 2300 transistors on a CPU, whereas today there are two billion. “Look to the future,” said Bowman, “because technological advancement is a certainty.”

Futuristic

He highlighted some futuristic ideas that are already upon us.

HP has recently announced the world's first flexible screen that you can just roll up and stick in your backpack. The technology that allows machines to “see” is also becoming so advanced that object recognition has become a reality, which means a whole new world of user interaction is on our doorstep. Number plate spotting, collision prevention, quality control during manufacture - the applications are endless. Cigarette vending machines in Japan now have age recognition installed.

“In fact,” said Bowman with a smile, “technology is presently better at age judgement than your average bouncer.”

Most importantly for the delegates present, this new technology will allow for tremendous new accuracy in ad targeting. The ad trends to watch centre greatly around location-based applications, Bowman said. Mobiles are fast transforming into something more like netbooks, but with interactions appropriate to your location.

Trapster, for example, is handy for us speed freaks who prefer only to slow down for traffic cameras. Then there's iNap: should you fall asleep on public transport it will wake you when you approach your stop. Particularly useful is Shopsavvy, which allows you to scan the barcode and find out which other shops nearby stock the same item - that means you can do some comparative shopping… without the tiring footwork.

Soon be as important

To digital advertisers Bowman stressed the point that the trend of mobile web use will soon be as important as PC-based use. “Mobile is driving behaviour change,” he said. “Today, 74% of all digital messages sent globally come from mobile devices. In Japan, 40% of all emails are sent off mobile.” What's more, he said consumers are almost twice as receptive to mobile advertising as to magazine advertising, making it the highest priority for prospective advertisers.

He conceded that the challenges in online marketing remain the same: how to make ads with more impact without distracting from the content, but he is confident that at BBC.com they have practically “reinvented video”, and he referred to the kind of user interaction inside ads on which the next speaker, Matthew Bull, had much to say.

Bowman also used the fact that the BBC has had a mobi site for the last 10 years as an example of the necessary measure of forward thinking required in a market that aims to keep up with the trends.

For Bowman it comes down to a simple admonition for our local market: watch the future - it will be here sooner than you think.