As new data leads industry experts to believe that tablet and smartphone sales are soon going to outsell desktop computers by two-to-one, market watchers are paying close attention to how consumers are going to process information. With tablets slated to outsell this year alone and smartphones predicted to reach sales in the two billion unit range by 2015, publishers are faced with having to move into a more intentional digital advertising focus or risk losing ad revenue.
A report by Monotype Imaging’s Brand Perfect initiative, Adventures in Publishing – The New Dynamics of Advertising, outlines how publishers can expect to more effectively reach consumer readers in order to hold onto ad revenue that keeps their publications afloat.
“Many brands know that they need to be developing campaigns that work across multiple devices, from the desktop, or even the TV, down to the smartphone,” stated Neil Ayres, editor of BrandPerfect.org, in a press release. “To support this, brands need adaptive media that enable them to reach consumers directly. This will only happen if more publishers invest in websites that satisfy readers regardless of what devices they use to access them.”
According to Brand Perfect, “Of the 78 consumer-facing English language publications detailed in the report, 83 percent have at least one app available in the Apple® App Store, Newsstand app or the Google Play™ service. Of these, 65 percent have published iPhone® apps and 40 percent have published apps for the Android™ platform. All 78 publish on the iPad® device. However, only 25 percent of these were optimized for any form of tablet display, with most publishers using scaled-down versions of their desktop sites instead. Of the German titles reviewed, 10 percent are optimized for tablets. Publishers are continuing to find their mobile footing, as documented in the report, with 38 percent of publications offering an iPhone-optimized option.”
For more information on the cross-platform concept aimed at digital publications, go to BrandPerfect.org.
Mercy Pilkington is a Senior Editor for Good e-Reader. She is also the CEO and founder of a hybrid publishing and consulting company.
