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Apple’s launch of iAds a year ago this month was meant to usher in a new era of mobile ads that didn’t “suck,” but it hasn’t turned out that way as brand spending on rich media mobile units still lags.
The fault for this gap is, according to Medialets CEO Eric Litman, can be attributed to a branding problem within the mobile advertising industry itself. Rich media advertising on mobile, according to Litman, has been a victim of poor marketing. Although static display on mobile dramatically underperforms rich media, marketers have stuck with static advertising on mobile because many believe it’s “cheaper and easier” to put a standard banner on a mobile platform, and, Litman believes, the rich media industry hasn’t risen to the challenge of communicating the effectiveness of mobile in comparison to online’s standard returns.
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