Like the blockbuster hit Mad Max, mobile is crushing it -- and mobile video ads are crushing it even harder. For travel marketers, that means mobile has roughed up the landscape.
This week, Mary Meeker, partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, unveiled her famous annual report on Internet trends.
We've picked a handful of her insights and provided Tnooz's perspective on how travel marketers can leverage her insights for their own work. Let's go:
Meeker's insight: More than 2 billion people now have smartphones worldwide. Yet Meeker says there remains a massive gap between time that consumers spend on mobile (massive!) and the amount of money companies spend on mobile ads (still small!).
Mobile ads only take up 14% of total global internet advertising spending. But consumers spend a lot of time on mobile -- as much as 24% of their total media consumption time in the US. Only TV gets more time.
Tnooz view: The rise of mobile is nothing new. But some travel company executives have yet to grasp how mobile should stop being treated as a separate ad category. All marketing campaigns should be mobile-first.
Meeker's insight: Mobile is where consumers increasingly begin their search queries and complete their transactions.
Tnooz view: Studying how Instagram ads work could pay dividends. Instagram is mobile media, crystallized into its purest form.
Likely broad findings: Engagement, conversation, visuals, and timely relevance are critical for effective mobile campaigns.
Meeker's insight: 55% of mobile traffic worldwide last year was mobile video traffic.
Tnooz view: Video is hot, but its effectiveness is context-dependent.
The value of a medium shifts by time of day, for instance. Mobile video could work best when consumers are engaging with content at nighttime, at the typical end of a long day and with likely access to broadband internet. During the day, static visual images or low-data gifs like Vines could work better in telling stories.
Meeker's insight: Mobile payment platforms are coming of age, which will accelerate the transition from transactions being completed on mobile, versus desktop, as in the past. "Buy buttons will appear on mobile seamlessly." (For more, see the NYT on Google and Apple's mobile wallet plans.)
Tnooz view: Travel brands may need to play catchup with digital natives like Airbnb, which already accepts mobile forms of payment such as PayPal for select countries, Alipay for China, Google Wallet for the US Android App, and Apple Pay for the iOS App.
Meeker's insight: If WeChat continues to play out as a trend in surging popularity worldwide, the leading mobile messaging platforms may evolve into major communications hubs, which will be critical for marketers to leverage.
Tnooz: Mastering the art of notifications that are context-persistent and that resonate with mobile users will be key for many travel marketers.
SEE THE FULL REPORT: Which features lots and lots of talk of
Airbnb as a model of future businesses --
Mary Meeker's 2015 Internet TrendsSee the New York Times's coverage of Google's and Apple's plans for mobile payment platforms.