But Ravi Shankar Bose, VP of international business at Fugumobile, argued that the guidelines are basic and prescriptive at too early a stage to be of great value. “They are too technically-oriented,” he said. “Mobile is a new medium. At this stage, the more innovation there is, the better.”
In drafting the guidelines, the Asia-Pacific Mobile Advertising committee (established by the MMA earlier this year) aims to educate brands and marketers in the region as to the potential of the medium, build consistency, and steer mobile marketing towards a positive consumer experience, avoiding bombardment of the public with unwanted messages.
The guidelines offer information on style, format and use of mobile web banner ads. Among the factors explained are the different technical requirements for ad creation depending on display capabilities, and advertising units such as banner dimensions and aspect ratios.
“It’s very important to follow these guidelines,” said Ken Mandel, Yahoo’s VP for Southeast Asia and MMA Asia-Pacific vice-chairman. “There’s a great opportunity in mobile marketing, but if you target people in the wrong way, there will be a backlash.”
David Turchetti, CEO of 21 Communications, said: “Currently, mobile advertising varies operator-to-operator and campaign-to-campaign. The guidelines seek to standardise advertising formats and deployment techniques so that operators, advertisers and brands can more effectively run mobile media promotions.”
Bose said best-practice case studies would be more useful than technical restrictions, noting that a spam overflow is already giving mobile marketing a bad name in India.
The MMA currently features case studies from Europe and the US on its website.
The main challenge, Mandel said, lay in educating marketers as to how mobile marketing can be used in an integrated campaign.