Go Mobile or Go Home

Smartphones are everywhere, and are the first and last things many consumers see every day. With this in mind, one would think that every ad agency would be focusing on developing mobile marketing skills and strategies to help their brand development efforts reach as many people as possible.

Research company L2 recently released its Mobile IQ report, noting that adoption is on pace to have more consumers accessing the internet through mobile devices than desktops or laptops by 2015. Mobile represents a "game changer," the company says, yet organizations have struggled to invest in applications that offer some value to consumers in terms of "utility and 'stickiness.'"

Although two-thirds of the brands surveyed by L2 have developed websites optimized for mobile browsing, just 67 percent of those sites enable commerce. "Furthermore, use of such marketing tactics as mobile optimized search marketing, cross-platform mobile promotion and mobile display advertising is scant," the researchers comment.

After reviewing a number of luxury and so-called prestige brands, the researchers concluded that nearly half of the companies are "feeble" when it comes to mobile marketing. They are not investing enough in mobile, with most not participating in the channel rather than underperfoming.

L2 marked Sephora as standing apart from all the other companies in terms of mobile commerce and outreach. Its site offers easily filtered and navigated product videos, as well as tools that enable shoppers to test nail polish colors and adjust virtual skin tones on their mobile devices for a better sense of how items will look in real life.

Citing an earlier study from L2, eMarketer reports that there is a clear need to focus on mobile-optimized site development, since consumers seem to prefer shopping through a browser rather than a smartphone application.