I prefer to focus on the positive, to give the benefit of the doubt, to believe your intentions were good. But sometimes you just have to say, “You can do better than that.”

Among the many apps currently eating up memory on my Blackberry is the Weather Network’s excellent WeatherEye. It’s a simple application that serves up contextually relevant information anytime I need it, anywhere I am. It’s also a great mobile success story. I don’t have the actual numbers, but I believe it’s been downloaded over 250 000 times in Canada. Not surprisingly, the Weather Network has monetized the application with display advertising and has attracted a number of high profile advertisers.

What makes mobile advertising attractive is the uncluttered environment, the ability to reach digitally savvy consumers that typically have higher than average incomes (or are young consumers – and who doesn’t want to reach them and start growing brand allegiance?), and high click throughs that would make most digital publishers drool.

Mobile advertising has been growing steadily over the past couple of years. The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s recent mobile revenue survey pegs the spend at $140 000 for 2007. That’s a sizeable increase over 2006’s $81 000 and I’d expect 2008 to show even better results. Small potatoes in the big picture but positive signs for an emerging ad channel.

So, take an uncluttered environment and an audience receptive to advertising and you have a powerful opportunity to nudge interest towards intent. This is why one recent mobile advertising experience left me scratching my head.

Back to the WeatherEye. While checking the weekend forecast, I noticed a banner ad from an automotive company (which shall remain nameless). Clicking on the ad, I was taken to a mobile internet site that had nothing more on it than the company’s logo and some brief marketing copy inviting me to stay tuned because the new models were coming soon. That’s it.

The problem with this is the missed opportunity to capture my interest and deliver me something of value. The advertiser could have:

•    Let me submit my email so they could send me a product brochure;
•    Provided click to call integration to connect me to their customer care centre;
•    Used the GPS on my Blackberry to help me locate the nearest dealer  and signed me up for a test-drive;
•    Provided a video of the car zooming around a racetrack or cityscape or some sugar shots of all the new features of this latest model. (Just like this BMW campaign did)
•    Let me forward the site URL via text to a friend who might also be interested in the car
•    Signed me up to an alerts service for new product info and exclusive offers such as a ‘sneak peak’ test drive
•    Delivered a coupon so I could get a discount on a ticket to the Auto Show
•    Entered me in a contest to potentially win a swag pack (heck, even the car if they really wanted to make a splash).

This advertiser failed to convert my interest and provide a meaningful brand experience, convert me into their CRM programming, drive me to retail or get me to share with someone else in my social graph. They had built a bridge to nowhere and I got there fast, just not in their latest model.

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