Online advertising is a big deal; in 2011 approximately £4.8bn was spent in the UK alone on this medium, a rise of over 14 percent on 2010[1]. The biggest growth area within this is the Real Time Bidding (RTB) market. RTB allows advertisers to specify a consumer type they want to target, the site they want to target them on, and then bid against competitors to display their particular ad. This happens at a rate of billions of slots for ads being auctioned every day[2], and has led to the creation of a highly complex and extremely rewarding system, both for advertising agencies, and the businesses which use them. However, the problem is that like any complex and established system, it is at risk of disruption if the underpinnings of this system start to unravel. New technology is emerging which begs the question, is that disruption about to occur?

Mobile devices continue to be a significant advertising channel according to recent research GfK Technology recently undertook in the UK.  The proportion of consumers who had received some form of mobile advertising stood at 47%, fairly consistent with the findings from Q2 ’09.  The big shift is perhaps the growth of iPhone as a staggering 84% of iPhone users say they have seen mobile advertising in the last 3 months vs. 45% of all other mobile phone users.

SMS continues to be the dominant form of mobile advertising with 38% of UK consumers receiving at least one in the last quarter.  It’s therefore not surprising that network operators are putting significant investment into this area with O2 launching their SMS marketing service, More, in December and Orange partnering a trial with Blyk mid ’09.