A Session on Mobile Advertising in Thailand with our Regional Director, William Seah!

So far, we’ve told you about what is mobile advertising and how much it matters to all of us. Fortunately, we’ve managed to grab some time from our busy Regional Director, William Seah, to tell us more about mobile advertising in Thailand.

What’s the state of mobile advertising in Thailand and how much has mobile advertising progressed over there over the past 3 years?

The state of mobile advertising in Thailand is healthy and growing year on year. Over the past 3 years, mobile advertising revenue has been growing exponentially in Thailand. Mobile traffic has surpassed desktop but in terms of ad spend, it has not caught up yet.  However, we are seeing a huge growth. I think cross platform campaign involving desktop, mobile , tablet etc. will be important.

What are the factors that need to be considered for a successful mobile advertising campaign?

The format has to be right, for example due to the ‘fat finger syndrome’. We also have to take into consideration when it comes to the type of font, creative that fits the format, the type of data connection that the users have in order to reduce the loading time. A good example is the Mobile Underlay, that is immersive and yet seamless with the site’s content. It is also very important for advertisers to have the right reach of demographic data to create a successful mobile campaign.

What are the most popular mobile ad formats for your clients in Thailand?

Mobile First View, for sure. Most of the time, the clients that we have here in Thailand prefer pre-roll videos; MFV is another alternative. Moreover, the inclusion of rich media support also allows brands to make an impact by delivering an engaging experience; while the full screen view increases attention and interest of the viewers.

Mobile ad formats are still leaning toward direct response due to the format limitations, what would you suggest as a solution in order to communicate brand values?

Native mobile ad format that expands in-page to show relevant content, based on accurate demographics behavioral targeting and contextual targeting would be great for brands to effectively deliver their brand messages.

Now that people are spending more time on their mobile instead of a desktop, do you think brands are keeping up with this trend? (seeing shift in budgets to mobile?)

There’s discrepancy – when it comes to the shift in budget to mobile, we can see the trend but it still hasn’t fully caught up yet. However, most campaigns here now include mobile,  so yes, it’s catching up.

What are the major differences between mobile advertising and online advertising? And how those differences are driving the growth and value of today’s mobile advertising?

Mobile apps have an accurate demographic & behavioural data, and location targeting which advertisers love. However, in online advertising, it is mostly restricted to certain times of the day that they’ll be able to reach desktop audience.

Some key trends that will drive the industry in the next 12-18 months.

Publishers could start to subscribe to Instant Facebook Articles – this is probably something that Facebook will be pushing. As for advertisers, they will also start to produce rich media content within Facebook. Line will be very strong here as they have just secured exclusive first rerun of GMM’s content within their Line TV app. At the same time, they are also planning to consolidate all the different kinds of apps: gaming, messaging, tv, radio, and e-commerce into one particular app, making them a big player in Thailand. On top of that, there are also many telecommunication companies like DTAC, Axiata, and AOL that have been acquiring ad tech companies over here and I believe they will start using customer’s mobile data to power the ad-tech companies. This trend will continue and within 1-2 years, their DMP should be ready to be connected to ad servers and ad exchangers.

Are there any other issues that your clients may be facing when it comes to mobile advertising?

I believe mobile advertising have some issue with iOS as it is a walled garden. Sometimes, advertisers are unable to do proper attributions. I think as this continues, Google will have a distinct advantage in the mobile industry. As of now, the key issue is how to connect the mobile cookies to desktop cookies without the use of apps.

With the phone screen so small compared to a desktop, which means harder to view, how would you create mobile specific creative that really pops?

Looking from another perspective, since mobile screens are smaller, mobile ads can more or less take over the entire screen therefore, user experience is more immersive and viewability increases. However, there can be issues with the text in the ad itself, which is why the videos and clarity of pictures are necessary in order to create a successful mobile ad campaign. It has to be seamless with content and not intrusive to maintain good user experience.

How do you think mobile ad-blocking will affect the mobile advertising industry and is there a solution to this?

In Thailand, generally, it’s not too big of a problem when it comes to mobile ad-blocking. They’re not fully aware of the ad-blocking features just yet. It could be in the near future. One solution is for publishers to develop mobile apps for their users. By doing so, their marketing value goes up as they can now charge for app notifications as well as drive more traffic to advertisers ads in app. Innity can play a part in building mobile apps for publishers at the same time collect user behavioural data for more targeted campaigns.