

Millennial Media has released its SMART report this week, offering some insights to the U.S. mobile marketing economy for the month of June. The SMART report, which stands for the Scorecard for Mobile Advertising Reach and Targeting, breaks down Millennial Media’s network activity across several demographic groups, advertising verticals and methods used.
Among the major findings was the influence of the entertainment industry in mobile marketing. The significance around this vertical as far as mobile advertising is concerned, was the creative ways in which campaigns were created around the channel. This has resulted in innovative leads in mobile advertising as a whole.
More specifically, Millennial Media noted a 300% increase in DVD release campaigns since Q2 2009, leveraging mobile ads for more effective marketing tactics. Studios in particular took to the ad network’s Audience Takeover tools, gaining engagement opportunities with consumers and driving ticket sales during premiere weekends.
The Audience Takeover tools, which are more targeted to specialized demographics, were also utilized by the automotive and telecom verticals. Hispanic and multi-cultural audiences are leading mobile data usage, while Millennial’s reach grew 2% overall from May to June.
From this perspective, you can see where the opportunities lay in overlapping demographics. In the SMART reports, Millennial Media makes the inferences towards mobile entertainment marketing across mixed-culture groups clearer;
The SMART report is digging deeper into the details around how and where which ads are seeing the most activity. Millennial Media not only sees the broader spectrum for these marketing channels, but can also improve and make recommendations upon its own mobile ad platform. As you can see from the image above, the break down amongst certain types of mobile ad targeting is becoming an important aspect of consumer outreach and marketing ROI. The broader targeting methods are still preferred, and even that’s a whole lot more targeted than you could have been two years ago.
Another report released from Forrester this week further demonstrates the lag between location-based marketing hype and actual activity. Consumers aren’t quite ready for social local ads, despite pundits and startups insisting all brands’ necessity to market on this level.
That’s not to say we won’t get there–the opportunities around mobile marketing have yet to be achieved. The sentiment is dear to Millennial Media in particular, as the company was founded before the iPhone even launched, in hopes of realizing its potential in mobile-based advertising. The space is still ripe for monetization and network growth, especially for Millennial, as it strives towards an IPO in the coming year.
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