Apple’s ipad will offer eye-catching advertising opportunities

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve undoubtedly heard about the launch of Apple’s new ipad. Apple (and everyone else) is touting the new device a cross between the laptop and the iphone. I’m not going to go into the details of the ipad and it’s features and capabilities, however I do want you to think of the advertising capabilities that will be viewable now on the ipad’s large screen and smart interface.

Since the development of the smart phone, app developers have come out of the woodwork to capitalize on these phones’ capabilities. Now, with the larger display size of the ipad, a screen size of 9.7 inches (similar to Amazon’s Kindle), but with 1024X768 Pixel resolution, app developers and rich media moguls are going to be salivating at the potential opportunities that await them. Imagine your ad on someone’s ipad, growing to a size not seen before on a device that has such mobility since the laptop. Imagine your ad animating, growing, moving, talking – persuading the reader In (technological) ways not even devised yet. The ipad doesn’t (yet) have flash capabilities so if you try to view something built in flash you’re going to get the annoying little icon that you’ve seen before on your iphone, however, I’m sure web developers and app makers are going to devise ways around this downfall by deploying messaging in ways that nobody has even imagined yet. I’m imagining that when an ad is viewed on an ipad, the ad will “know” that it’s being viewed on that device and display appropriately. (versus if it’s displayed on a smart phone) That opens up a lot of opportunities to ad builders like myself, and advertisers like you.

I don’t think that the ipad will ever replace the mobility and usability of a smart phone nor replace the effectiveness of mobile marketing. Also the fact that ads on the ipad can be geotargeted will be a huge differentiator from ads served on laptop computers. As an art director I can see many benefits to this new frontier of viewing ads, although the jury is still out whether this device will be a hit or not. Do you see any new opportunities here? Shoot me a quick comment.