According to the latest IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark report, the definitive guide to the state of the European online advertising market, there was a breakthrough in mobile advertising already in 2013. Mobile was neither only a part of advertisers' experimental budgets, nor an afterthought to a digital campaign. Mobile advertising spend continued to grow dynamically in most investigated markets. Mobile display advertising was also the main factor influencing the growth of online display advertising. It grew by 14.9% in total, but would only have increased by 1.1% without the contribution of mobile.
Despite the dynamic growth, mobile ad spend constitutes a small share of total online budgets
However, when we look more closely at the numbers, the reality does not reflect the industry's enthusiastic approach. Close scrutiny of the top 3 European spenders on mobile advertising shows that mobile advertising is becoming a reality only in United Kingdom, where a quarter of online display ad spend is allocated to mobile. In France and Germany, it constituted only 9.2% and 4.9% of total online display ad spend, respectively (see Figure 1).
The situation in countries of the Central and Eastern Europe is very similar. The dynamics of growth in many countries, such as Romania (244.9%), Serbia (153.3%), Hungary (126.1%) and Poland (110.6%), is still very high, yet mobile ad spend constitutes a small part of total online budgets (see Figure 2).
Mobile is a part of Romanians' lives
Mobile penetration is already big, and with +22 m active SIM cards, sounds like a +100% penetration... It is very important for digital advertising industry that one: the share of smartphones/tablets should be also increased – there are some estimations such as an average of 1 in 4 Romanians owning one, and two: to decrease internet mobile data costs. But both these issues already resolved by the telecom players who are coming with ever improving offers exactly in this area. So we can consider it done.
Regarding mobile advertising, there is certainly a wish in the market to use its potential, and if clients meet the right specialists, campaigns can note great results and promote biggest share for the next one, and so on.
One more point here, related to research of how much mobile traffic is these days vs. desktops: there is still an impressive share of the desktops, but consider mobile versions as generally being really optimized. What I mean is that the traffic data volume in terms of kb just says that on desktops we consume “richer” content, not necessarily less time…
The future of mobile internet is probably easy to predict, because entire future will be… mobile. There is already a big trend towards “mobility”, with desktops and even laptops manufacturers trying to find a way to stop the total decline, while losing ground to all the “super” (because also laptops are mobile, aren't they?) mobile devices of the moment. To provide a parallel, just think about Nokia's delay in venture to smartphones, and see how hard their mission is now - just to have an image of how fast things are moving… So the influence of mobile (internet also) will be more than big, becoming probably the core in few years. Because there is a media rule which says: we go where the audience goes… Is just one big thing we have to take care of: mobile devices are really personal…and this means that somehow they can become the greatest friend (of advertisers) but also with a big risk to become intrusive – I think that this will be the big challenge of the next years: to be visible, with engagement potential, but to succeed to skip the intrusive effect.
Romania has all the reasons to follow the mobile trend. Just think about all the telecom players' communication of these days, with so much focus on smartphones/tablets and data offers. With T-mobile also entering the market this September, we have all the premises to increase the reach and time spent. The next link in the chain are the brands, who just need to adapt their strategy, creative and so on, and start, if they didn't already, to communicate properly. So, Romania will certainly be part of this story.
Cosmin Otel, Digital Strategy Director, Initiative Romania
Mobile ad spends come mostly from pioneering initiatives rather than strategic focus
I think that mobile has come in Romania, but not in a giant leap - rather through a steady growth in terms of mobile penetration, mobile business and time spent on mobile internet by users. However, in terms of advertising, ad spend on mobile is made mostly by pioneering initiatives rather than strategic focus. We do expect slow but steady growth in mobile ad spend in Romania. We perceive mobile more as a part of the development process experienced by the entire digital sphere rather than a medium competing with desktop. From this perspective, we think this brings opportunity to online business, opportunity that today is up for grabs, but tomorrow you will hardly find an uncrowded spot.
Victor Avram, Country Manager, Gemius Romania & Moldova
Excerpt from the Gemius report, Consumers go mobile in CEE - Mobile Market Overview,
http://files.gemius.pl/Romania/Consumers_go_mobile_in_CEE_2014_final_RO
