Ever since Apple’s iAd announcement yesterday, many have questioned whether the lack of Flash is going to dilute the effectiveness and long-term viability of the platform, and what it means for the future of mobile advertising on Apple’s devices.
One such person with a keen interest is Greystripe CEO Michael Chang, who yesterday released a response regarding his views on the whole situation. Greystripe is an ad-network that utilizes Flash-based transcoding to bring the technology to Apple devices, and as such, was watching the iAd announcement very closely.
“True to Apple’s style, the company continues to improve their products and platforms based on consumer feedback. We are thrilled with the iAd announcement, it’s a thumb’s up for mobile display and brand advertising,” explains Chang. “Today Steve Jobs highlighted that mobile advertising is not all about search, that it needs to be interactive, elicit an emotional response and function within the app. We agree 100% and have been doing this for over 18 months with our rich media iFlash ads.”
He then speaks of the difference between HTML5 and Flash for mobile display ads and the many questions left unanswered during the announcement. “The in-game ad that Apple demoed today was almost exactly like Greystripe’s Alice in Wonderland interactive ad campaign. The challenge that Apple faces is that they require HTML5, while almost all digital advertising is built in Flash,” Chang continues. “Unfortunately Apple’s announcement today raised as many questions as it answered.”
Chang and the rest of the mobile-ad industry have these three questions to ask of Apple;
- What is Apple’s pricing model – CPM, CPC, Cost per download, Cost per acquisition?
- Will Apple/Quattro help create advertising collateral for brands or agencies?
- What types of ad targeting will be possible with iAds?
Being only a day after the announcement, more details will likely come down the pike, but until then, the ambiguity surrounding iAd continues to raise questions. One thing’s for sure, iAd will have monumental effects on mobile advertising as a whole, we just don’t know the extent of which yet.
