Let's get together and do it again

JP Morgan's Imran Khan (different Imran Khan) is tipping online display advertising to grow this year by around 10.5%. Which is obviously massive. He also cites a few trends that seem to be moving the industry away from naff executions - aka the banners that neither you nor I ever click on. Which, let's be honest, is all of them. He is talking though of a trend more towards what Banner Blog exists to share with us, which is great.

That's not what I want to talk about though. In the same article Khan talks about mobile growing 45% (!!!) this year, winding up with $3.2 billion spent on SMS, $253 million in mobile display, and $321 million in mobile search.

A few things:

1. As the mobile platform improves, the notion of display as distinct on mobile from PC will disappear


2. It will however give way to services sensitive to your platform and do other interesting things around location, and device-specific functionality


3. I don't understand what constitutes "mobile search" - maybe someone can explain it to me?


4. Advertisers who invade the phone like they have every other medium are going to get smacked; it's still too personal

Aside from all of this, it's the same Mcluhan-esque mistake (slide 44) made in online advertising where we take what we did before and force it into this new shape because we don't know any better. If anyone truly believes the best way to use a mobile phone is to send people SMSs, they deserve the rapid demise their business will receive.

Frankly it speaks to the lack of vision and general laziness that pervades the entire ad industry. With the simple days of TVCs and print long behind it, rather than thinking about how it can reinvent itself to be relevant in a new era, it consistently mines tired ideas that speak to the silo-mentality of 20th century media.

People, look at foursquare, get in and use it for a few weeks. That, right there, is a perfect storm of local marketing, small business marketing, and mobile. If you do not see it, either try harder, or find a job where you do not need to.