Our friendly ad networks will be chipping in for drinks and all of you are very much invited to attend. In fact, you need to be there, as lots of us will be over in Spain.

So don’t be Barce-lonely next Wednesday, make sure you put this in your diary and invite your colleagues. Party starts at 6.30pm at the Adventure Bar, 20 Bedford Street, Convent Garden WC2E 9HP.

RSVP to marketing@somoagency.com.

Google shifted its AdMob platform to an AdWords-style auction, where the winning price is determined by the quality of the ad and the other bids on that impression.

It also removed minimum bids and targeting fees so that inventory is sold according to supply and demand.

In response, Apple slashed its cost per campaign from $400,000 to $100,000, down from a whopping $1m when iAd first launched in 2010.

Apple also improved the percentage of ad revenue it pays to developers, and removed the additional fee that marketers were forced to pay when a user clicked their ad.

So why has Google chosen to revamp AdMob now? Is it all to do with the threat posed by Facebook’s ad platform? And what does the pricing re-structure mean for advertisers?

To get an overview of the issues we spoke to Somo’s international CEO Thomas Schulz, who is the former MD of EMEA at AdMob.

Why has Google chosen this moment to change its mobile ad pricing? Is this entirely because of Facebook’s new mobile ad platform or are there other forces at play?

Google will probably have been planning this for some time. It will have had many triggers and in many ways it is a natural evolution in a maturing market.

Facebook’s move into mobile advertising will have been some motivation, though not exclusively, the same as with LinkedIn.

Smartphone penetration is only around 50% in developed markets, so mobile web traffic will only increase as more and more people buy new handsets.

It is also a logistical migration, from AdMob to a Google stack, bringing everything in line.

Will Facebook now be forced to redesign its forthcoming mobile ad platform?

Nobody is entirely sure how they are going to do it, so we can’t really know if this prompts a redesign.

On Facebook’s mobile platform it doesn’t look like there would be any real estate for top and tail banners, while full page interstitial would likely be too intrusive and not in keeping with Facebook’s ‘user-centric’ content policy.

Market sources suggest that it will be sponsored stories, which wouldn’t necessarily be competition, as they would be using their community as brand ambassadors as opposed to pushing messages.

Facebook’s size is the frightening thing! As you know, it’s predicted to make $1.2bn in the first year from just six markets. It gets 40% of UK mobile traffic. It’s disruptive stuff.

You’ve said the change to AdMob’s pricing will likely turn the industry on its head, why is this?

Before this change, it was a settled market. It wasn’t pure supply and demand, instead controlled by minimum $0.10 bids where various areas were falsely inflated, like iPad traffic.

We’re seeing an inventory explosion which means everyone taking another look at their prices.

As the market continues to mature, supply and demand will even out, along with improved tracking and better optimisation, all contributing to a better ROI for advertisers.

How will the changes to AdMob prices affect marketers and the price they pay for mobile ads?

In the early stages, we have seen prices declining. In the short-term there should be improved efficiency, which will then make the platform more profitable and attractive to advertisers.

In the longer-term, a combination of new advertisers entering the market and current advertisers spending more should mean prices rise again.

In 2011 Google reportedly took 24% of the US mobile ad market, up from 19% in 2010. By how much do you expect it to expand its market share in 2012 and just how dominant can it become in this industry?

We would expect it go up, as the influence and take-up of Android is pretty good worldwide, with more than half of market share of smartphones in the UK.

Last year, according to Eric Schmidt, nearly 80% of Google’s biggest advertisers weren’t mobilised.

They are making their own efforts to mature the market – encouraging brands to create mobile optimised sites and new ad formats, as well as richer formats becoming easier and cheaper in general.

Is Apple’s decision to slash iAd prices a sign that it got its pricing structure wrong and overestimated demand, or has it just been forced to re-evaluate in the face of growing competition?

When Apple launched iAd, it was a premium proposition and so they felt they were pricing it accordingly high to make it sought after real estate. And it created a lot of hype.

At the time, and even today, the market isn’t mature enough for them to have enough $1million advertisers.

They were probably considered too restrictive in terms of the creative control as well.

As a publisher, although they could deliver high eCPM, they had low fill.

Apple’s closed platform is often seen as one of its strengths, but could it also fatally undermine iAd as advertisers will instead look to networks like AdMob and Millenial which have a larger cross-platform reach?

iAd might well be the default for brand advertising that requires reach and targeting, as they have access to a wealth of information from iTunes data.

Apple’s potential for retargeting is also really excellent although they are more limited in terms of demographics. However, I think Google will still win for performance marketing.

For the original article click here.

The Domino’s iPad app, released in August last year, has also been shortlisted for Innovative Use of Mobile for its industry-leading use of ecommerce and the success it has contributed to the pizza company, along with the iPhone and Android apps developed by Somo.

Our new Innovation Director, Maani Safa, who was formerly Product Director, has been chosen in the Innovative Individual category as well as Hugh Fletcher, the Head of Digital Marketing at Audi, who Somo works with on a retained basis for all of their mobile products.

Well done to everyone at Somo and good luck for the event on March 6th!

Somo’s Andrew French, one of the few specialist Trading Directors in the mobile industry, was quoted speaking in the US to Chantal Tode at Mobile Marketer about the huge fluctuation expected in the coming months, particularly when Facebook enters the market. His broad experience in strategy and sales  helps him to understand the complex media mix, including ad networks, CPI operators, ad exchanges and working directly with publishers. Today, he personally negotiates with our partners to get the right media at the right price globally.

Nationwide Building Society is the largest in the world and was founded in the UK.  It provides financial services both directly to customers and through around 700 branches. Nationwide is a major provider of mortgage loans and savings, as well as personal banking loans, credit cards, bank accounts and insurance products.

Objective

To create a mobile website presenting Nationwide’s full range of products and services that is quick and simple to use.

Solution

Somo was asked to take a project management and interface design role within the Nationwide mobile site project. The team conducted qualitative research, scoped and built the front-end, and managed the client relationship.

The initial research extracted what was needed from the mobile site – how and where people would use it and who Nationwide’s users are. With mobile usage likely to be on the move, the user journey needed to be accessible with minimum interactions.

Using HTML5 and CSS, Somo designed a light user interface, allowing for quick loading and offering carousel and accordion design functionality, which neatly displays a lot of information in a small space and streamlines users’ flow.

As the first of Nationwide’s anticipated mobile products, Somo’s user experience design team has laid the foundations and set the tone for future mobile products in terms of look and feel.

The site is well put together, integrating fully with Nationwide’s existing CRM systems and is accessible via iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

 This means that advertisers will only pay the maximum amount needed to secure a click and not necessarily the amount bid. The advertiser’s ad rank will be calculated by multiplying each maximum bid by their Google quality score, which is mainly determined by click through rate. So the ad that is served will not automatically be the one with the highest bid. The minimum bid floor has also been removed.

Disrupting the mobile landscape

 This hugely disruptive move by Google, just after Facebook’s record-breaking $1billion filing, has turned the mobile advertising world on its head overnight and will cause erratic pricing and performance across many campaigns.

In December, Facebook reported that more than half of their 845 million users were accessing the service via mobile, and its move into mobile advertising would have made them one of the biggest publishers overnight. With 1 in 4 online display ads delivered by Facebook, with excellent targeting, they were tipped to take the lead in personalised mobile ads, but from today, they will be presented with a very unstable landscape. Apple’s iAD has quickly followed this news by cutting their prices, and other networks have tied up budgets ahead of these changes.

Competition hotting up in mobile

Mobile is the space where advertisers are starting to move their budgets to catch-up to the amount of time users spend here. As ad dollars start to move, there is inevitable competition between the biggest global players to secure those budgets. There’ll be further disruption when Facebook enters the market but this is likely to work in the interests of advertisers as not only will there be more ad placements to choose from, more should become available with relatively good targeting options.

What’s in store for the future?

There will be a time of instability until the market finds the right equilibrium in the new auction, and the landscape will be further complicated in the coming weeks by Facebook’s move. We may see online quality scores mirrored on mobile – paying extra attention to relevancy of ads and the quality of landing pages. This moves the focus onto users and would be in-line with Google’s push to improve the mobile experience.

The Somo founders, and many of our team, have been through similar macro changes before in the search marketing industry and our data analysts are already working to establish trends and patterns across all clients. We’ll be making sense of this complexity for our clients and putting our experience to good use in optimising their campaigns for the best results.

If you have any questions about what the changes might mean for you, get in touch…

Virgin Games, the leading online gaming company wanted to launch a brand new offering for Virgin customers – Virgin Casino Mobile. The brief was to encapsulate the experience and entertainment from Virgin Casino and deliver it to players while they’re on the move with a quick and user-friendly site. The key demographic was 18-50 year olds, Smartphone users and gaming fanatics.

Strategy and solution

Somo was responsible for the delivery of every stage of the project for Virgin Games, from concept and design, to development and execution and promoted the service through mobile media post-launch.

Virgin Casino Mobile was integrated, by Somo, into the company’s bespoke built gaming platform and will be developed into a multi-content proposition with games from a range of content partners. Developed as a web application, the service is instantly available on any device with a browser without the need for App Store approval.

The mobile site initially offers Microgaming’s mobile games content, including three online favourites Thunderstruck and Tomb Raider slots, through the game developer’s Quick Fire integration process. Additional content suppliers will be launched in the second phase of the project in a similar fashion to Virgin Game’s internet offering, which provides a variety of games from a number of developers.

A single wallet system was implemented to the new mobile product, meaning players use the same account to play Virgin Casino, Virgin Bingo, Virgin Poker and now the Mobile Casino. Customers can register, manage their account, play for bonuses, deposit and withdraw seamlessly and instantly, wherever they are.

Audi chose to add a mobile optimised version of their main site to exploit the increase in use of iOS and Android smartphones. Users can enjoy 360 views of available models in the Audi showroom and old and new customers will be able to find comprehensive information whether it is a new purchase, or an existing model.

Features of the site include: brochure and test drive requests, model specifications and costs, used and new car search and finance and offers. Users can locate their nearest centre through postcode and town look-up features. The ‘owners’ area’ provides information on servicing, maintenance and supporting products including Audi insurance, Audi warranties and roadside assistance.

Objectives

Audi wanted to extend their digital reach, making content available across all devices and targeting customers in every channel. The site aims to create a feeling of the space on a small device. Understanding mobile behaviours and making use of this we designed a site to influence light browsers in the information gathering stage, while addressing the limited time needs of people on the move and providing enough information for uses who are looking to make that big purchase.

Strategy and solution

Audi use the latest HTML5 technology to offer a fully interactive, user-friendly mobile website that showcases their luxury vehicles within a small screen. The site integrates Audi’s content management system, scaled to meet consumers’ changing demand.

The site combines comprehensive information with easy navigation to meet new and existing customer needs, highlighting finance and offers, nearest Audi centres and arranging a test drive. The image gallery, a first in the mobile automotive industry, allows 360 views of all available models with in-depth details on the car specifications, pricing and how to arrange a test drive.

Results

The Audi mobile site launched in January 2011 and within three weeks it was achieving 10,000 page views and more than 1000 unique visitors per day, before any marketing campaign had taken place. Ten months on, the mobile site had received almost 220,000 unique visitors and over 300,000 visits in total, achieving 146% of target. Today, almost a fifth of all traffic to audi.co.uk  is on mobile and tablet devices.

The average number of pages viewed per visit is 10, much higher than is typically seen on mobile, showing a high level of engagement.

Hugh Fletcher, Audi UK’s National Digital Manager, said:

“We’re delighted with Somo’s work in designing the site for us, Somo has applied a new mobile technology in a truly innovative way that enables us to present our cars in a manner that is both eye-catching and which fits with our strategy of making our cars more easily accessible to all customers via mobile devices.”

The combined functionality and design of the mobile site has enhanced Audi’s reputation as a technologically advanced automotive brand and has also lead to positive coverage of their current and future mobile and digital strategies in the marketing trade press.

http://m.audi.co.uk

Love is in the air between Facebook and mobile payments solution firm Bango as they signed an agreement this week. Although the love nest may be a little crowded, with deals already drawn up with Amazon and EA, the new relationship with Bango indicates that Facebook is keen to replicate on mobile the success of in-app purchases via desktop. With all the distinct pleasures of sharing and competing with friends, in the most convenient way possible, is there a social mobile app store on the horizon?

Relations have become increasingly frosty between Apple and rogue developers who are playing the App Store system to get high rankings, and therefore more downloads. We have always advised our partners against such practices, offering them advertising-led solutions instead. Apple takes very seriously its position in high quality and rigorous standards. Hell hath no fury like a tech giant scorned.

Sad news from The Verge this week; online dating site algorithms don’t necessarily bear any relation to how well you might suit potential love matches found on the net. We’d have thought the last place techy jargon would help would be in the dating game, instead hoping a mutual love of hockey would be a good start, and that the secret fascination with badger baiting might be something you could learn to enjoy together…

There really is nothing like distilling anything and everything into numbers and pictures, so here’s some excellent Valentine’s infographics:

For the singleton, ever gotten a date online? Find the most popular online dating sites, breakdown of users, and the things men and women are most likely to lie about on their profile…

For romantics, how to pull of the perfect marriage proposal. 88% of people are waiting for their soulmate, 50% of people blow the surprise, and the average age for marriage in the US is 27 for women and 29 for men. So either breathe a sigh of relief of start to panic!

And for those who can’t get enough love, Valentine’s Day by Numbers. Did you know, the festival of fertility was first celebrated in Ancient Rome?

And finally, an elaborate proposal. You’d have to be very confident she was going to say yes…

But on Tuesday, Amazon, one of the other great success stories of the last few years reported its Q4 2011 results and while sales rose 35 percent, profit declined 58 percent.  This bitter-sweet news for Amazon comes after excellent Kindle and Kindle Fire sales over Christmas. Commentators are convinced that the Fire is only good for reading, and the research seems to ring true so far. But that’s no bad thing. Their move into tablets pushed them further along the value-chain from ‘just a retailer’ to publisher of books and entertainment too. They should target the over 60s – they buy lots of books right?

Elsewhere, an embarrassing revelation passed largely under the radar. TEAM BOLD. We put some faith in RIM having a rethink, after a year that has seen their share price drop a whopping 75%, and come out all guns blazing with an excellent plan to target their core, loyal, keyboard loyalists.

Instead, they did this. GoGo Girl, Max Stone, Justin Steele and Judy Foreal have taken to the streets to try and reclaim the youth of today, who most adults know are pretty unreachable. Especially from a politically correct cartoon crime fighting team. You can almost see their looks of pure disdain. Oh RIM, are you for REAL?

What is real is a massive interest in corporate apps, so we sent @Sleighty out to talk about how we have helped some global clients design and build internal apps and app stores at the Square Group event about iPads in Enterprise, exploring how they help reduce costs, create efficiencies, help frontline staff engage with consumers and speed up what is often still a paper-based system. Large corporations could save millions. And with 1 in 5 workers using Apple products for work, this is yet another area where Apple is cleaning up.

And finally, Zombies, Run! A new exercise app game crowd-funded by Kickstarter. If you hate running, you’ll love this.

“You tie your shoes, put on your headphones, take your first steps outside. You’ve barely covered 100 yards when you hear them. They must be close. You can hear every guttural breath, every rattling groan. There’s only one thing you can do: Run!”

Nothing like feeling that someone’s chasing you when you’re out in the city alone.

We can’t wait.