Location-based Advertising: Still Nascient and a Note of Caution

At CTIA in San Francisco…

During a panel session on location-based advertising, Isaias Sudit,CEO LOC-AID Technologies cautioned that a new ad unit is needed before more adoption can occure. "I still think that mobile advertising is still nacient. My big concern is still CPC (cost per click)...and it doesn’t work very well on the mobile advertising side. There is this notion that we need to start thinking about a new ad unit that doesn’t mimic the wired world. If we don’t move on this, the only winners are going to be the big internet houses," refering to Google and Microsoft. "Mobile ad space should sit down and figure out how that ecosystems is going to work out and the location guys will help," said Sudit.

A new ad unit that isn’t CPC. Let that sink in a minute because everything we thought about in terms of internet advertising will change. I think what Sudit was suggesting was that location needs to be factored into the cost equation.

But Sam Altman, CEO of loopt, cautioned that, "Sending an SMS to a mobile device when you walk within a certain distance of a coffee shop, did not work." Altman believes that to focus on the small "mom and pop" retailers is necessary. "But they aren’t used to buying those types of ads," he warned, suggesting that much education needs to be done to secure money from a business that is more used to buying Yellow Page ads rather than mobile, location-based ads.

Darren Koenig of Tele Atlas suggested that when you are able to targeting at a defined level of location the smaller mom and pop can begin to compete.