By Martin Hayward

Last year, mobile advertising was consistently a hot topic as more marketers realized the superior effectiveness of reaching consumers on mobile devices.

Still, industry analyst Mary Meeker recently revealed that print media represents only 8 percent of consumer time, but accounts for 27 percent of ad spending.

Meanwhile, mobile media also represents 8 percent of consumer time, but only 0.5 percent of ad spending.

HyLoMo and more
This year we will see that change, as marketers leverage the powerful capabilities of all connected devices to increase consumer purchase intent through targeted campaigns. Here is why:

1. Advertisers will leverage HyLoMo (hyper-local mobile) technology to offer consumers more engaging advertising options, such as interactive coupons and games that are directly relevant to the customer, based on device type and user behavior.

2. Today’s interactive televisions will become an important part of an advertiser’s marketing strategy as consumers make purchases and interact with ads from the comfort of their living room.

3. Smartphones, tablets and other portable devices will interact more with home devices, providing advertisers with new paths to promote and sell their services.

We will see marketing dollars shift to online mediums as advertisers rely on connected devices to reach target audiences.

4. More consumers will use smart devices in real-time to find deals while they are out shopping and advertisers will take advantage of geo-location detection to reach them even closer to the point of purchase.

This will have a significant effect on the way marketers and bricks-and-mortar stores interact with consumers, especially as smart devices become the preferred medium and vehicle for ecommerce.

5. In November, Internet viewers nationwide watched 20.5 hours of video online, a total of 40.9 billion videos – more than 20 billion more videos than in November 2010 (comScore). This number will only grow more in 2012.

With this increased strain on Web sites, TV networks and video providers will look to new services to deliver rich content faster and remain competitive, particularly as we observe the rise of the connected television.

REACHING CONSUMERS through these connected devices enables advertisers to create a one-on-one marketing experience with informed messages that are relevant to the right audience.

In 2012, we will see even more ad campaigns targeted at connected devices that deliver real-time content and take relevancy to the next level.

Martin Hayward is director of marketing at Mirror Image Internet, Tewksbury, MA. Reach him at [email protected].