Cannes 2013 Video: IAB - Mobile Isn't a Screen, It's a Behavior

ClickZ spoke with Anna Bager, VP and general manager, Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, Interactive Advertising Bureau, during Cannes Lions about the future of mobile and its large presence at the festival.

The IAB hosted a panel at the Palais Des Festivals in Cannes on mobile around the theme of liquid creativity, with the goal of defining what mobile really is and how mobile is changing. The panel featured Digitas Chief Creative Officer Lincoln Bjorkman, Zumobi co-founder and Vice President of Product Design John SanGiovanni, and Foursquare Chief Strategy Officer Steven Rosenblatt.

Bager said the panel gave three different perspectives – one of the creative agency, one of the publisher, and one of the media vendor/technology company. “They all showed their view of what liquid is…and how you can reach the user in a much more intimate way with your message…[They also talked] about how you also need to change the way you work as an agency if you want to do good mobile advertising because you have to be much more in real time, much more of a user mentality,” says Bager.

On the issue of challenges mobile marketers face in being creative on such a small screen, Bager says that marketers “have to think differently than you do with display advertising. It doesn’t translate over to the mobile screen directly; this is a new way of doing it. I think you can do excellent brand building and advertising on a mobile screen, you just have to think differently and think about the message you put out there. At IAB we actually don’t define mobile as a screen; it’s about a behavior, it’s about us as users moving across platforms, being mobile throughout the day and actually expecting to be able to pick up content wherever we are.”