What Will iPad Advertising Look Like? 5 Crazy Ideas That Might Actually Happen.

Although we’re spending most of our time building and making our product better (it’s really starting to look good, btw), we still like to keep an eye out for what other people are doing that’s creating a buzz in the tech space. Of course, when it comes to buzz, no one can get Silicon Valley (as well as the rest of the world) going crazy like Steve Jobs and the the rest of the Apple crew down the road in Cupertino. The most recent example of this is the launch of their new iPad, which Steve Jobs has said “will be the most important thing that he’s ever done”.

All of us here at isocket are crazy about gadgets (especially Zak), but what has really got us talking are all of potential ways that advertising will be implemented on something as versatile, mobile and innovative as the iPad. Here lately there’s been major mobile advertising deals inked by both Apple (who bought Quattro Wireless) and Google (who bought AdMob), which only further fuels our interest on how all of this iPad advertising business is going to shake out.

Today at lunch we all quickly brainstormed a bit about how this new iPad could potentially be leveraged for mobile advertising and as with most of our brainstorming sessions, a few crazy ideas made their way into the conversation. So, here are 5 iPad advertising options we felt that we might be seeing sometime here in the not-so-distant future:

Advergames: The idea of in-game advertising is nothing new, but it’s going to be taken to a whole new level with the iPad due to it’s amount of screen real estate and the fact that it’s a gamer’s dream (which has already been proven with the iPod Touch). I’m picturing going to a piece of content and being able to play a game right inside of an ad zone as opposed to downloading it, running it and being taken away from my current experience. If you like the game (that’s being brought to you by Best Buy), you can buy it from the iTunes store, or continue to browse away as you were before you started playing.
True Real-time/Location-based Ad Placements: I take the Caltrain from San Francisco to the office every day and I have to either pull out my laptop to hop online or somehow limp along with my Blackberry (yes, I actually have a Blackberry). If I had an iPad I would not only be able to easily work the web on the way to work like a pro, but I could also potentially be targeted with very relevant and very real-time ads. For instance, I could see browsing through the SF Chronicle to catch up on my SF news only to see an ad that lets me know that the Starbucks in Burlingame is doing a buy one get one free deal this morning only until 11am. It could do this due to the fact that my iPad is always on, always up-to-date and always location-aware. Kinda creepy, but kinda cool, too.
Advertising Outside of the Box: Like most other tech geeks out there, I enjoy using my laptop while watching TV. Sometimes it’s because I’ m looking up more information about what I’m watching, but most of the time I’m using it as a distraction from the commercials. Although taking this 2-screen approach is becoming more and more popular, the ease and innovation of the iPad is what’s going to make this type of behavior go mainstream. This will turn the current setup of a laptop for distraction to an iPad for collaboration. This also means that various apps and online experiences are going to be built specifically to be used on the iPad as a way to bust the boring content of TV into a more fun and interactive environment. To begin with, this will allow for an advertiser to extend the 30 second spot into something more meaningful (and trackable) on the iPad. In the future there could be specific brand-sponsored apps that you could interact with throughout a TV show that would be able to make the show commercial free (think behind the scenes content during American Idol).
Interactive Product Placements: Watching videos on an iPhone is OK, but by beefing up the screen size to nearly 10″ the iPad is going to make it a whole lot better. This will mean that all kinds of content (both professional and user-generated) are going to be watched a lot on this new platform, which will also bring about new ways for producers to monetize this content through advertising. One method, for example, would be if you could click on Jack Bauer’s watch, phone or bullet-proof vest as a way to find out more info about the products and to potentially purchase them directly through the iPad. Although you could probably do this now with a laptop, the fact that the touch screen is available on the iPad makes it a much more favorable medium for this type of interaction.
Tap To Remove Ads or Anchored Ads: These feel like they would be a little bit on the obnoxious side, but if it means that I can now read the New York Times for free on my iPad, then I would probably be all about it. I don’t foresee these types of ads being sold into a particular ‘ad slot’ like you see now, but instead would be directly anchored to various pieces of content that are being read, viewed, etc. on the iPad. For instance, there could be a different type of ad covering each article (except for the title and summary) in the New York Times based upon what the article is about, who is reading it and where they are reading it from. To read the article that is hidden beneath the ad, you would simple tap the screen and it would disappear to reveal the content that’s below (which would be very trackable and useful information). Also, another option that’s similar to these ‘tap to remove ads’ would be an anchored, floating ad that you would move around the page as you scrolled through content. This ad would change depending on what all of the same information as the tap ads, but would never fully leave the page. Like I said, these are fairly obnoxious, but I could see them being created in the bear future.

So, there you go. These are the 5 (not-so) crazy advertising ideas that we came up with for the new iPad, so feel free to let us know about any other ideas that you come up with, too. Looking forward to hearing what you come up with.

January 27 | Filed Under Advertising