GLOBAL – FEBRUARY 25, 2011 – Reports are circulating that Apple is slashing the minimum price of iAds from $1 Million to $500,000.
Much excitement surrounded the iAd launch in April 2010, with Steve Jobs boasting about the iAds’ interactivity and use of HTML 5 instead of Flash. Apple claims that sales of iAds were a success with a remarkable 100% renewal rate, but recent published reports show a drop in advertisers. Last December Apple even opened iAd development through third-parties via the iAd Producer app.
The price cut will definitely help iAds get new advertisers, especially smaller companies with corresponding budgets. Problems with the iAd stem from more than just the price tag. The exclusivity to the Apple platform is one problem, versus other mobile ad venues which allow them to cross platforms and reach a broader audience. A confusing pricing system is also a hurdle for advertisers, who are charged an additional fee for each ad expansion by users who hit the ads by mistake. In the end, advertisers pay a lot more for mistaken taps on the mobile screen.
As Jobs sets out to re-define ads as we know them, it seems that he is nowhere close to winning and mobile advertising continues to be a wide open field.
