“Apple’s mobile advertising platform iAd, which displays ads in iPhone and, soon, iPad apps, will certainly benefit Apple and the developers it shares ad revenue with,” Austin Carr reports for Fast Company. “But is it an effective tool for advertisers of all sizes?”

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“When Steve Jobs first introduced iAd, he heralded the program as the next dominant player in mobile marketing, predicting that it would swallow up 48% of spending in the field through December. That gigantic market share brought hope to small and medium size businesses that would benefit most from inexpensive digital advertising,” Carr reports. “However, a recent report by Cross Forward Consulting suggests the ads are anything but cost-effective.”

Carr reports, “According to founder David Smith, the results of an August ad campaign the firm ran for its growing AudioBooks Premium app revealed the iAd platform to be ‘disappointing’ and financially unsustainable.”

MacDailyNews Take: One ad campaign’s results are meaningless in evaluating iAd’s effectiveness. That much, at least, should be self-evident.

Carr reports, “There is the possibility that Cross Forward’s ad lacked engagement and emotion, or more likely that AudioBooks Premium offered nothing to draw users in. The iAd program has seen effective and engaging advertisements: Major brands such as Nike (seen in the video below) have produced clever ads that provide interactive fun–like the ability to browse every Nike Air shoe by year of release. But those ads not only cost a huge amount to create, but require a major ad buy in order to effectively reach the iPhone user base.”

Read more in the full article here.