“Madison Avenue is eagerly awaiting Apple’s next-generation iPhone, with hopes running high that it will bridge the gap between the hype surrounding mobile marketing and the reality,” Holly M. Sanders reports for The NY Post.
“Although no one has seen it, analysts are pretty sure the new iPhone, which Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to unveil next week, will be a high-speed 3G model. The upgrade will make it faster and less frustrating to access the Web, as well as download music and videos,” Sanders reports.
“Another tantalizing prospect are rumors that the phone will come equipped with GPS, making it possible to pinpoint where the device is being used. The ability to target users in such a fashion is particularly appealing to marketers,” Sanders reports. “‘From the marketing side, more than the consumer side, there is the promise of location- based targeting,’ said David Berkowitz, director of emerging media for 360i, a digital marketing firm. ‘Marketers get really excited about this.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Citymark” for the heads up.]
Keep those f-ing ads off of my GD iPhone!
Just what I want, target-based advertising. They go to far.
I seriously doubt that Apple will allow GPS data to be provided to marketers to bomb you with ads…Unless it’s in the context of something that shows up on Google maps and that can be turned off.
This sounds like just another moronic news story…
No more advertising thankyou. Advertising is a tax on all of us, typically 15% of the price paid covers marketing expenses. 98% of advertising is irrelevant to the recipient. Many years ago now I almost bought a PC thanks to advertising, thanks to the spirits for good friends as one of them put me right.
See what Walt Mossberg has to say about advertising (and generally an excellent short video).
http://www.beet.tv/2008/04/ftc-should-stop.html
It’s a good thing it comes with that little towel.
@MikeR: You’re missing either an “o” or a “t” in your post.
Hey, if the advertisers want to pay for my iPhone and Data Plan, I will let them put adds on the Phone:-O
” Sanders reports. “‘From the marketing side, more than the consumer side, there is the promise of location- based targeting,’ said David Berkowitz, director of emerging media for 360i”
David Berkowitz….If I had that name and I lived in NYC I would either change my name or move.
“You’re missing either an “o” or a “t” in your post.”
Yeah. They goo to far.
@ LiM,
Funny post, thanks for the laugh
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I’m sure I’ll be in the minority, but I could tolerate SOME ads popping up on my phone. But they would have to be ads specific to MY buying habits, and they would have to be limited. Like Mossberg said, I wouldn’t want just every kind of random thing popping up. But I wouldn’t mind at all if I was driving home, and an ad popped up giving me a coupon for $2 off at the Pet Supermarket. It might even help me remember that I need to get cat food. As a matter of fact, I already get text message coupons from Border’s, and I love it. They only come every couple of weeks, and I don’t have to worry with printing out coupons at home and remembering to bring them with me. However, the doubt I have is whether or not the retailers could restrain themselves enough not to push it to the point of harassing me. If I were to get an ad pop up EVERY time I drove past a Harris Teeter or a Food Lion, I would get pissed in a hurry.
Everyone here needs to read M.T. Anderson’s book Feed before thinking this might in any way be a good idea.
Or see the movie Minority Report.
New App: GTFO my iPhone (GPS) filtering.
If they put GPS in this model what will they have to sell to you next year?
@Gandalf
You state:
“98% of advertising is irrelevant to the recipient.”
That may be true, but at any given time 2% of readers/viewers/browsers will connect with an advertiser’s message, and both advertiser and consumer will be happy that the connection was made, and both will benefit. There is an old adage in advertising that is just as relevant today as it was a hundred years ago:
I know that 90% of my advertising is a waste. I just don’t know which 90%.
Most people don’t want to admit how much the benefit and are influenced by advertising. (Are my allegiances showing too much?)
I am looking forward to the App store for the iPhone, I think that is the biggest news. The SDK looks easy to use and Apple has a bunch of How To …. on iTunes….I want to try it and I am sure there will be tons of books of how to as well….it looks great. Apple is on the right path.
Re: Wish I Was Here: “However, the doubt I have is whether or not the retailers could restrain themselves enough not to push it to the point of harassing me. “
They would absolutely NOT restrain themselves. Advertisers do simple math – since very few ads are responded to, they have to send a lot of ads to get the number of uses they want.
@ Spark
So 2% of consumers and advertisers being happy is worth taxing the other 98%? The worst products are the most advertised, they have to be worse to afford the advertising. Snacks, sugar-water drinks, Windows are great examples. One product I was familiar with cost around 3% of the sale price, obviously there are packaging, distribution, retailing costs that won’t go away but the total marketing was in excess of 40% of the retail price. That was a popular corn breakfast cereal. When Toast (ex Roxio) was sold to Sonic(?) one analyst queried whether the new buyers would spend enough on marketing, it was currently costing 63% of revenues. Advertising will never go away but it has got out of hand.
What if everyone had an extra 17 minutes per hour rather than seeing TV adverts, they may use that productively and earn more money to spend on goods, they may use that time to talk to their friends and learn what products they are pleased with. Lets not forget that goods would cost 15% less too. Advertising is very, very expensive, few people realise how much.
Furthermore advertising favors the big entrenched players over the little guys and they are mostly who do the innovating. And that my friends is why there is so much pressure to force advertising on to iPhone, Zune. Advertising takes power and choice away from the consumer too because it replaces more honest communications with contrived marketing messages, think what Dell just got in to trouble for. I think most people here (Zune Tang excepted) would agree that Dell sells crap when they can get away with it (ie not to large accounts), it’s quite good to see them falling apart because the revenue from that crap isn’t enough to pay the marketing expenses.
If previously-published stories are to be believed, the GPS functionality in the new iPhone OS will make it an opt-in feature – you can have it always on, always off, or have it notify you when the GPS functionality is activating. So, marketers may not be able to drool quite as much as they wish they could here.
@Gandalf
“So 2% of consumers and advertisers being happy is worth taxing the other 98%? “
It is not always the same 2%. What is not of interest to you could be a real problem solver for someone else. Advertising is simply a form of communication. Are you trying to make me believe that not a single purchase you’ve made over the past year was influenced by ad you saw? And don’t forget: almost every news and entertainment channel is supported by ad revenues, so if you just read review in a magazine about a product that counts too, because there wouldn’t be magazines without ad revenue.
Advertising costs money, of course, but a manufacturer needs buyers. The best product in the world can die on the vine if potential buyers are not made aware that the product exists. Economies of scale that bring down costs may never be reached if a large customer base is not developed rapidly. Advertising exists because it works. And it works for both sides of the equation. It’s naive to think that product prices would magically be lower is no one advertised.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to see ads everywhere, but they are nothing to be vilified, except when they get in your face like Pop-Up/Unders on the web, or where you’ve paid enough for the entertainment that you shouldn’t be subject to them, like at the movie theatre. Other than that advertising greases the wheels of information and entertainment in ways that most people never consider or give credit.
Since 98 percent of the time iPhones are used indoors where there is no GPS reception I don’t see how this would work. And if Apple really thinks telling marketers where you are is a good idea it would have turned on the faux location system to do that already wouldn’t it? I wish they would, love the ad people to think I am four miles from where I really am just like the iPhone thinks.
I have no problem with location-based advertising when I want it. I have a problem with ads and such completely out of the blue.
The example I’ve given, stolen from the Apple ad, is the watching “Pirates of the Caribbean” and suddenly hankering for some seafood. I pull out my trusty iPhone and discover three seafood restaurants within 5 miles–one of which has a special on jumbo shrimp.
That I have no problem with.
Yeah, like Apple creates products that cater to advertising… Apple wants the consumer to be happy. Ad’s don’t usually make people happy.
They’ll need to make an application called “iCommercial” that people can buy and install if they like ads…