Market on the Move

With advertising pervading social media, Instagram is the latest to join the bandwagon for more involved ads, thanks to a reported $40 million deal with Omnicom (the ad agency group that handles brands like Nissan, AT&T, Pepsi and Bud Light). Promotional videos and pictures will now find their way to Instagram users, in a new attempt to increase revenue from mobile users who are responsible for more than half of the social network’s ad revenue. With the percentage of Instagram users increasing from 12 to 19% from 2013 to 2014, it comes as no wonder that advertisers would like to get their hands all over it. While Omnicom believes that this would be another apt example of media becoming the message, critics might be justified in their claims that ads will override the user experience. While such outcomes are debatable, the fact that mobile marketing is on the rise cannot be denied. According to eMarketer, the global mobile ad market grew 105.9% in 2013 and revenue increased to $18.16 billion from $8.8 billion in 2012. Citing an edge in being able to reach people on-the-go, mobile advertising is set to overtake newspaper ad revenue in the UK in 2014, with a whopping £2 billion. In the age of smartphones, investing in mobile ads might just be the smart thing to do.