Will Mobile Ads Go Universal?

by Amy Vale 


I’ve been hearing a lot of conversation recently about the concept of the “Universal Creative” and whether it is more valuable to make unique rich media creative which works well for mobile, or develop an ad that can run in as many different channels as possible. First of all, what does “Universal Creative” actually mean? In the context of mobile, this means the development of global ad units across all mobile media channels: mobile web, messaging, applications and mobile video and TV.


What does all this mean for advertisers and publishers? For advertisers, this means creating once and being able to run everywhere. Put another way, agencies will be able to quickly and easily run ads across applications from different publishers. For publishers, it means a bigger supply of ads that are compatible with them, and therefore higher ad revenue potential. The important consideration is the tradeoff between the scale and engagement of ads. Great creative needs to strike a balance between reaching as wide an audience as possible and being unique and engaging.


The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) developed a set of “universal” guidelines with the aim of reducing the effort required to produce creative material and ensure that advertisements display effectively on the majority of mobile phones, regardless of device. Similarly, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has established a common Application Programming Interface for mobile rich media ads that will run in mobile apps. This is a standardized set of commands, designed to work with HTML5 and JavaScript that developers creating rich media ads will use.


IAB explains that, “Innovation in mobile rich media ad serving has led to many exciting possibilities for content publishers and advertisers, but it has also created inefficiencies that often delay and inhibit the optimal monetization of content.” The standardized commands intend to simplify the process for designers of ad creative and increase the likeliness that agencies will leverage mobile into their media buys.


Mocean Mobile believes that rich media should be able to run as broadly as possible as advertisers and publishers benefit from having ads that are capable of running the most sophisticated rich media but still be compatible with almost any mobile site.