M&C Saatchi mobile managing director Asia Pacific Chris Steedman responds to an article last week in which GroupM chief investment and intelligence officer Danny Bass predicted Australia's mobile ad spend would remain between five and 10%, despite Asia Pacific having much higher levels.
For Australia, Bass said: “You won't be seeing [that 15%] here. Facebook's mobile offering isn't as established in Australia. But they've staffed up heavily here in the past year and there will certainly be a recharged sell effort from Facebook around mobile in the next 12 months.”
You could say that’s the exact problem with the traditional Australian media agencies and why mobile ad spend is so low here. While it’s fantastic that Facebook are staffing up heavily, digital media agencies shouldn’t be waiting for Facebook to set up shop in order to seize the big mobile opportunities on Facebook.
That they are, or the suggestion that they are comes from a clear lack of understanding of where the opportunities in mobile currently are – the sorts of opportunities specialist mobile agencies have known about for almost a year now.
Currently Australian brands are in a great position to take advantage by testing and learning from the slightly more mature mobile ad markets, you would expect the global media agencies to act on these global trends.
If they sit around and wait for these opportunities to come to them, you can only imagine what other mobile opportunities media agencies will continuously fail to capitalise on, on behalf of their clients further down the track.
Chris Steedman
Mobile Managing Director APAC
M&C Saatchi