Longer, richer, and stranger

What separates great mobile advertising from the less than great?

The website think with Google has posted an insightful analysis of what makes a mobile ad “unskippable.”

They tested three different versions of a popular ad for Mountain Dew Kickstart, and then compared the impact of each ad, controlling for whether it was viewed on a desktop vs. a mobile device.

One might argue with the methodologies they used to assess the impact of each ad. They used ad recall and brand awareness, which obviously are tried-and-true, mainstream metrics, although they would have benefited from using an implicit tool like IAE to figure out the ads’ impact on perceptions of the brand.

At any rate, the conclusion is that there is no conclusion, no silver bullet. But the study has led Google to assert that there is considerable room for experimentation in mobile, and that mobile ads don’t have to be short. Indeed, as the report says, “longer, richer, and stranger” ads are likely the ones that will keep our eyes glued and our minds engaged.