With 2005 drawing to a close, it’s time for the interactive advertising year in review. If you’re like me, you can’t remember what happened in July let alone way back in January, particularly where interactive marketing trends are concerned (have you noticed that there’s a considerable amount of overlap with these sorts of things?). With that in mind, I thought I’d offer a month by month recap of the units, formats, and channels that made this a watershed year for interactive marketing.
h3. January: Vlogs
Given the popularity of blogs in 2004, we had to expect the trend would continue this year. The newest blogs, however, were a lot richer. Video blogs (blogs that incorporate video clips) made their presence known this year, thanks to vlogs like Peter Jackson’s “Kong is King”:http://www.kongisking.net/index.shtml. They’re sure to continue to flourish, thanks to distribution channels like multimedia search engines.
h3. February: Podcasting
Podcasting ended up being big all year long, but February “saw the introduction of the world’s first podcasting ad network”:http://www.clickz.com/experts/media/media_buy/article.php/3483571. Just think how much our “options have expanded”:http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113167835201394489-6RLXo50JXniwqPt59a3cCUJPXsM_20061111.html?mod=blogs) since then.
h3. March: Online Video
After the Superbowl, which brought with it a number of TV ads that subsequently found audiences online (remember “GoDaddy?”:http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/superbowl05/landing.asp?isc=wscfwst304&se=%2B), marketers took a longer, harder look at online video. Can you think of a current online campaign that doesn’t include it?
Category: Mobile
_At “Phantom Fiber Corporation”:http://www.phantomfiber.com/, Alexander S Bosika is responsible for corporate branding and marketing communications, partner relations and business development in addition to investor communications. He has an Honours Degree from York University in Economics and Business and studied at the London School of Economics._
_Jim Brown is responsible for managing the growth of “VoCoMo”:http://www.vocomo.ca/html/main.html, including strategy, service development and tactical execution. Prior to this Jim worked with Rogers AT&T Wireless, Bell Canada and Bell Mobility. He has an MSc from the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. Jim is also a graduate of the University of Toronto Continuing Education Strategic Leadership program._
*One Degree: What is Mobile Monday?*
Mobile Monday Toronto (“MoMo-TO”:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MoMo-TO/) is a group dedicated to cultivating and accelerating Toronto’s mobile and telecom sectors through leadership, technology, government relations, research, education, mentoring, investment, recruitment, networking and promotion. Through active collaboration, we aim to generate new ideas, concepts and business relationships with the end goal of developing a “strong mobile eco-system” for the Greater Toronto Area to further support mobile initiatives.
*One Degree: What inspired you to start a Toronto Chapter?*
If you haven’t yet started to explore mobile marketing, now’s the time. According to a new study from “global research company TNS”:http://www.tns-global.com, about 66 percent of Canadian Internet users now own a mobile phone, up from 57 percent in 2001.
This penetration is consistent with the U.S. — where mobile marketing is quickly becoming the modern marketer’s go-to medium for reaching young, tech-savvy consumers — but is well below the European average (mobile phone penetration in Western Europe currently sits at about 80 percent among all consumers).