ANA Magazine - October 2011

their marketing arsenals, choosing instead to silo the medium or deploy it on an ad-hoc basis. Research from Chief Marketer found that just a third of marketers had integrated mobile into a cross-platform strategy as of last year.

There seems to be broad consensus among marketers that greater integration of mobile in the path-to-purchase cycle is a desirable outcome. To wit, nearly six in 10 of those surveyed by Chief Marketer said integration was on their “to do” list going forward. But why is there still some hesitation when it comes to integrating mobile into cross-platform strategies? For one, the digital ecosystem is complex, says Geoffrey Handley, cofounder of The Hyperfactory, a Meredith Integrated Marketing Agency based in New York. Too often, digital-savvy marketers within an enterprise lack other marketing skills, and vice versa. That leads many brands to outsource mobile to self-proclaimed cross-platform experts, a path that often strangles the potential for innovation, Handley notes.

Metrics are another problem. “A one-size-fits-
all approach doesn’t work with any channel or
medium, and we are increasingly faced with this
in mobile,” Handley argues. “The current
metrics, whether for assessing the business in
the first place or from a performance perspec-
tive, are not suitable for mobile. Rather than
solving the issue of metrics, marketers simply
shunt mobile off to the side. The trial-and-test
mentality that is pervasive in marketing also
contributes to mobile being siloed.”
Mark Kaplan, founder and CEO of the New
York–based software company GEM, also has
strong feelings on this topic. “The primary reason
mobile is so often treated on an ad-hoc basis is
that the marketing channel still views it as a
technical capability instead of a consumer
behavior,” he insists. “After all, a mobile phone is
just a handheld device for accessing the Internet.”
Kaplan believes a major obstacle to meaning-
ful integration of mobile into marketing strategies
at large companies is the lack of exposure at the
brand unit level. Most decisions on mobile
spending and capabilities appear to be made at
the corporate level or in a silo. Moreover, there is
the potential for conflict between agencies and