“The average mobile user looks at their phone 150 times a day,” said Twitter’s sales director, Bruce Daisley, but all eyes were on the speakers at the third IAB Mobile Engage event.Daisley was among elite speakers from Google, Unilever, M&S and Shazam presenting informative and thought provoking content at the Grange Tower Bridge Hotel, London. 
Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB, opened proceedings by reminding the capacity crowd of the humble origins of the mobile phone, when the late, great comedian Ernie Wise first made a call to Vodafone HQ back in 1986.
Fast forward two and a half decades and UK mobile advertising spend alone is projected to be £962m in 2014 – a 3000% increase since 2008.
Why you should join the mobile movement
Simon Morgan and Jonathan Abraham from Google outlined why marketers should join the mobile movement and what the platform means for modern business. Simply put: “More Android phones are being activated than babies born around the world.”
The pair suggested marketers think about the three reasons why people primarily use their devices: to kill time, save time and to entertain.
They stressed why it’s important to improve the in-store experience by marrying ecommerce strategies – prescient given that 57% of people don’t recommend a business if it has a badly enabled mobile website. 
How mobile is driving social media
Next up was a tour de force from Bruce Daisley of Twitter. Daisley was quick to point out that the fastest-growing businesses are truly mobile and that the culture and essence of mobile could be captured in one word – “interstices”, the gaps between things.
He made the audience conscious of spotting the “gaps” in the market and stressed how the best businesses arose out of such gaps - citing Pinterest, Instagram and DrawSomething as examples.
He also pointed out that in our mobile-centric world, the average SMS is opened in 4 minutes – 720 times faster than the average email.
Challenging publisher thinking
Mary Beth Christie, online product management director of the FT.com, highlighted the success of the brand’s Metered Model. This combines registration and subscription triggers and the benefits of meeting with readers face to face to discuss user experiences.
In her own words, the key points to the FT.com mobile strategy included fostering a “hybrid culture” of print and digital collaboration as well as always seeking to know and respect their readers as human beings, not just data points. 
Challenging agency thinking
Stefan Bardega, Head of Mobile & Innovation at MediaCom, stated that a brand’s digital assets need to be fit for purpose, with its mobile site, advertising and search marketing working in harmony. He pointed out that the way people interact with the same device is not consistent for everyone, understanding this nuance is imperative when it comes to advertising.
Bardega stressed creative was paramount in optimising consumers’ conversion journeys as well as gaining engagement and influence - a trend unlikely to abate.
Challenging advertiser behaviour
Addressing the psychology of the mobile, Unilever’s global director of innovations and media, Jay Altschuler, spoke of “nomobophobia,” - the fear of being without your mobile device. He then went on to explain how “the thumb was the way we now interact with the world.”
Highlighting some of the brand’s successful product mobile strategies, in one instance utilising an entire town centre for an augmented reality game, he went on to discuss apps being developed to help authenticate products in global territories prone to counterfeiting.
Challenging high street thinking
The final morning session saw key players from M&S (Rosie Srao), Dominos (Nick Dutch) and Debenhams (Sarah Baillie) exploring how mobile has impacted the high street and the need to engage the savvy consumer searching for better deals online.
By entering into a mobile dialogue with shoppers they saw an opportunity to educate them on further store offerings that could be accessed through the medium. The panel agreed that having a presence on whatever device the future held is key to maintaining consumer rapport.
All agreed that WiFi in-store is now a must have. Baillie made the point clear: “WiFi will become commonplace in retail stores in the future. There are many benefits of people engaging on mobile within the store: allowing them to double check prices against the website, read reviews or share products with friends for a second opinion.” 
Mobile challenging media consumption
Richard Firminger, managing director of Flurry, spoke of challenging media consumption. “Apps are the fastest growing disruptive media,” he commented. The balance is continually tipping in favour of spending more time on apps than we do browsing. We spend 94 minutes on apps vs 72 minutes on web browsers.”
But app retention is an issue and Firminger pointed out that most app developers lose up to 76% of their audience after three months and 96% after 12 months.
Mobile with other media research
Managing director of O2 Media, Claire Valoti, presented a retail case-study in which O2 partnered with Starcom,measuring the efficiency and role of mobile vs other media within a Pizza Hut cross platform campaign.
Although out of home was proven to be a direct driver, mobile was the number one performing media. - being142% more efficient in delivering incremental sales revenue than the campaign average.
Why did mobile work so well? A combination of three factors: mobility, connectivity, and personalised messages.
Rise of the tablets
Jon Mew, IAB’s director of mobile and operations, pointed out the incredible adoption rate of tablets. In 2010 IDC predicted that five million tablets would be produced, in the same year, Apple sold 15 million iPads. They later predicted 69m would be produced in 2011, an estimate that was revised up to 106 million by Q1 2012.
By comparison with iPhone sales and growth, the iPad has sold at three times the rate of sales of its predecessor.
Mew suggested it’s now time to put a particular question to bed – “the tablet is neither a mobile, nor a PC”.
Mobilising marketing
What’s the first thing we do in the ad break? Many of us think immediately of kettles, but Andrew Fisher, CEO of Shazam, corrected us that by explaining that 60% of us check our phones - and for the most part the first thing we do is check Facebook or Twitter.
Fisher claims the next inflection point in consumer empowerment is marrying TV and mobile - bringing the experience together so people can buy, share, receive an offer or voucher.
Overcoming the challenges
Richard Eyre, chairman of the IAB, informed delegates that mobile in the USA attracts 23% of media time yet only 1% of advertising revenue. This massive disparity will narrow with the introduction of mobile payment systems, which he described as a “game changer”.
Eyre ended by arguing “Mobile is not an advertising medium as we know it, so don’t advertise on it, mobilise on it. Then embed this into your brand advertising plans because mobile will be biggest brand tool on the planet.”
How brands are making the most of mobile
Discussing the potential of the mobile market, one of the world’s leading authorities on future tech, David Rowan, UK editor of Wired, stated: “We’re only at the start of the commercial opportunity of a lifetime”.
Rowan highlighted that we are all now fully immersed in the mobile era and that in order to capitalise on it we should be following the John Dare model of SoLoMo (social plus local plus mobile.)
He suggested that people would “rather play than scan QR codes,” citing geographically diverse and inventive examples from Nike+, Carling Black Label and Audi.
The real Louis Theroux
The day rounded off with a fire side chat between Richard Eyre and broadcaster, Louis Theroux.
Theroux, a self confessed technophobe, said he decided to get involved in social media when he realised how many false Louis Theroux’s Twitter accounts there were.
“There are people out there pretending to be me. One guy had 10,000 followers, another had 100,000 followers, and it doesn’t do me any favours if there are these numpties cashing in on me, so I thought I’d get in on the Theroux business.
Theroux talked animatedly about everything from drunk tweeting to the moment Christine Hamilton flirted with him.
Theroux’s latest project is a more revealing subject matter – porn, specifically the demise of this billion dollar industry struggling to adjust to the challenges of the digital economy. Theroux argued that this could be a bellwether for the mainstream broadcast industry.
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