“But with iAds, Apple has moved from the business of making ads to the business of selling them,” Battelle reports. “And in the past month or so, Apple’s new team – folks formerly known as Quattro Wireless but now sporting brand new Apple business cards – have started making sales calls at a handful of major brands and their agencies.”
Battelle reports, “At launch, only a selected few marketers will be ‘allowed’ to run iAds. And as has been widely reported, those brands have to pay quite a price to get into the launch portion of the program. Given the steep price tag (reportedly up to $20 million, and I’ll be getting to that in a follow up piece), it’s almost a certainty that the ads will be of high quality – only the most established brand marketers are going to play at this level… Apple is telling marketers willing to pony up for the launch that Steve Jobs will mention their brand on stage as he launches iAds this summer. ‘That is worth a hell of a lot,’ one agency chief told me.”
Battell also reports, “There’s nothing new here. Anything you can do with an iAd, I’ve confirmed with numerous very knowledgeable sources, you can do with AdMob or any number of other networks.”
Much more in his full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Battelle’s contention that “there’s nothing new here” with iAd is wrong. Battelle overlooks the unique advantages iAd can offer advertisers in terms of rich user data (Core Location, among other things) along with excellent demographics. Yes, John, other ads can show you movies, let you play games, etc. but they won’t be on Apple’s iPhone OS devices, and even if third parties get some premium type ads seen, they won’t be delivered with the same type of targeting that Apple’s iAd offers. Like Mac users, iPhone OS customers are special. iPhone OS users are proven to be able to recognize and are willing to pay for quality. They are the cream of the crop; the kind of potential customer that many companies badly want to reach with consistency.
[Attribution: The Business Insider. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "James W." for the heads up.]
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