Apple’s iAd platform launched to great fanfare in April, with the promise of revolutionizing mobile advertising. In June, Steve Jobs further excited industry watchers by announcing that Apple had booked over $60 million in iAd commitments for 2H 2010 from brands the likes of Nissan, Sears, JCPenney, GEICO, Target, Best Buy, GE and Unilever, as well as longtime partners Disney and AT&T.

The first iAd campaigns started to trickle out in early July, and in general, the platform has been slow to pick up steam. Wired reported in mid-August that “control issues” (something with which Apple is synonymous) were hampering the iAd rollout. On the other hand, most advertisers have professed themselves to be pleased with their iAds as well as the initial results of their campaigns. In a conversation we had earlier today, Chad Stoller of BBDO referred to this as the “return on innovation” – the benefit of associating your brand with something perceived as leading edge.

How long this effect will last is a matter of open debate. Jami Lawrence of Publicis Modem told the audience at this week’s Digiday Mobile conference that iAd lacks the reach brands are looking for, calling an iAd campaign little more than a PR move. And in a recent Reuters interview, Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz said with her usual candor that iAd will “fall apart” for Apple.

That long-term prognosis remains to be seen. For now, conversations I’ve been having with industry leaders as preparation for my annual look at mobile ad spending trends indicate widespread agreement that iAd has a) benefited the mobile advertising space as a whole, and b) underscored the effectiveness of mobile as a branding medium.

Just to cite a few examples, Maria Mandel, vice president of marketing and media innovation for AT&T Advanced Ad Solutions (NB: AT&T is an iAd advertiser) and North America Board Chair of the Mobile Marketing Association told me:

What Apple did was that they were able to brand and build a tremendous amount of awareness around in-app rich media advertising. And the success that they had with the upfront is evidence of that. They’ve really helped build out that market where now there are a lot of advertisers that are aware of in-app rich media advertising and are interested in doing it. And I think that’s a good thing for everybody in this space.

This sentiment was echoed by Frank Barbieri, chief product officer for Transpera:

With iAd in the market, it got everybody talking about the power of mobile as a branding mechanism, and that’s a rising tide that we’ve seen float all boats, including our own.

Eric Litman, CEO of Medialets, described what he’s seen as “a significant uptake in both the level of activity and the velocity of transactions happening on the premium ad side,” citing the launch of iAd as a key factor in this development.

The positive impact of iAd even extends to Apple’s closest rivals. Tony Nethercutt, vice president of sales for AdMob, the mobile ad network Google acquired in December 2009, explained:

We’ve benefited in a number of ways. First and foremost, from the attention it has brought to creative, and mobile, in general.

Apple undoubtedly faces challenges with iAd. Considerations such as cost, longer campaign development cycles and the necessarily limited reach that comes with a siloed network are readily acknowledged. But even firms that ostensibly compete with Apple in the rich media, premium ad space appear to have benefited, either directly or indirectly, from Apple’s entrance into the market.

Image via Apple

Today kicks off National Hispanic Heritage Month in the US, so we decided to take a look at a few of the trends and tips we’ve seen lately about Hispanic media usage and how marketers can reach them.

eMarketer estimates there are nearly 30 million Hispanic internet users in the US this year. Hispanics are underrepresented online, with less than 60% accessing the internet at least monthly, compared with 76% of non-Hispanic whites and 63.8% of blacks. And according to June 2010 data from the Associated Press and Univision, online Hispanics spend more time with English-language content on the web than with Spanish-language sites and information.

Hispanics were also significantly more likely to report spending no time using the Spanish-language internet, at 53%, vs. just 32% who said they spent no time on English-language sites.

This research falls in line with earlier studies, such as one published in 2009 by Ipsos that found 59% of Hispanic men and 51% of Hispanic women preferred English on the internet. Even 10% of respondents whose primary language was Spanish would rather go online in English, according to that study.

But attitudinal research shows that marketers must still reach out to Hispanics in Spanish. Experian Simmons found in December 2009 that more than two in five Hispanics felt Spanish-language advertising is a sign that companies respect their heritage, and nearly as many said they were more loyal toward companies that show such respect. Spanish-language ads were unsurprisingly more important to Spanish-dominent consumers than to fluent English speakers, but solid percentages of all Hispanics care when marketers make the effort to connect with them through their own language and culture.

That also means Spanish-language marketing content should not appear second best. Unfortunately, however, that is increasingly the case.

As eMarketer senior analyst Lisa Phillips wrote in May, “many of the Spanish-version sites are lagging behind their English counterparts. According to AOL’s Hispanic Cyberstudy, one-quarter of Hispanic Internet users say they could not do all the same things on a Spanish-language site that they could do on the corresponding English-language site.”

Bottom line:

If you are going to offer online content in Spanish, make sure it is as robust as your English-language site. Hispanic internet users are checking out both, making comparisons—and commenting to their online friends and families. Your brand’s image could be tarnished by the very effort you think is helping to reach a wider audience.

The day is coming when Asia-Pacific will surpass North America as the world’s biggest advertising market. According to data published in eMarketer’s new “Global Media Intelligence Report,” which was released in collaboration with Starcom MediaVest Group, the question is not whether Asia will overtake North America in advertising spending; the question is when.

Currently, Asia-Pacific is in second place behind North America in total media ad spending worldwide. Advertisers are expected to spend $135.1 billion in the region in 2010, compared to an estimated $176.6 billion in the North American market.

But growth rates are a different story. The overall advertising market in North America is expected to grow about 2% each year through 2014, when it will reach $190.6 billion overall. Asia-Pacific, on the other hand, will see growth rates between 4% to 8% each year until 2014, when the total media ad market reaches $173 billion in the region.

Currently, North America controls 36.6% of the worldwide advertising market, compared to Asia-Pacific’s 28% share. But North America’s share will decline to an estimated 33.8% of the market by 2014, while Asia-Pacific’s slice will increase to 30.7%. Based on current growth rates, it’s likely that as the Asia-Pacific ad market continues to mature, it will eventually outshine that of North America sometime beyond 2014—most likely, in 2016 or 2017.

At the simplest level, the reasons behind the shift come down to sheer numbers. We’ve written before about the staggering number of mobile phone users in China (850 million in 2010, at last estimate), along with the fact that there will be more mobile internet users in China this year than the entire population of the US.

In addition to mobile users, massive “untapped” populations of internet users in China and India are another reason. China currently has an estimated 518 million active internet users, according to eMarketer estimates, compared to just 63.6 million in India. Combined, these two populations make up the fastest-growing demographic of internet users in the world, pegged by eMarketer to increase to over 1 billion by 2014. Knowing that, it’s no wonder marketers are spending more in Asia-Pacific, though I’m not sure whether we should be heartened or disheartened that, in a few years, we won’t be No. 1 anymore.

The “Global Media Intelligence” report covers six major regions worldwide — including countries in Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, North America, and Latin America — and focuses on digital and traditional media advertising spending trends, demographics, broadband and mobile penetration, media usage, and consumer behavior in each region. It is available exclusively for eMarketer Total Access clients.

The China Daily recently reported that China Mobile, the world’s largest wireless operator, announced a competition for video submissions for potential inclusion on a new mobile video channel. The carrier, which has more subscribers than the US has residents, will share video ad revenues—which could prove substantial in the near future—with the contest’s winners. In his latest eMarketer report, my colleague Noah Elkin estimates that mobile content revenues will soar in the US, driven partially by ad-supported video and music. Several factors suggest that the mobile content market in China—especially revenues from mobile TV and video—is headed down the same path.

ResearchInChina found that as of December 2009, mobile TV and online video adoption rates were relatively low, at 16.5% of mobile internet users in China. However, the popularity of other forms of online communication and entertainment suggest a highly receptive mobile audience.

eMarketer estimated in February 2010 that China will have over 850 million mobile phone subscribers by the end of 2010, for a penetration rate of 64.3%. We also projected that mobile internet users would increase 62.5% in 2010 to 372.8 million, with prospective growth rates remaining high through 2014.

What do these bits of information add up to? As more users buy smartphones and other entertainment-enabled phones, China Mobile is looking to maneuver itself to tap the potential of mobile video and TV revenues. According to Netsize and Informa Telecoms & Media, mobile video and TV account for only €127.27 million ($176.2 million) and €34.38 million ($47.8 million), respectively—less than 1% of all mobile content revenues in 2010.

China Mobile continues to expand current 3G coverage and is heavily investing in 4G, as InformationWeek reported, partnering with mobile hardware developers Nokia Siemens, Huawei and Samsung, among others, on their new proprietary 4G network standard. They are upgrading their network to broaden revenue generating services beyond messaging, voice and basic mobile internet.

All of this makes China even more attractive for multinational marketers and content providers.

With the clout of the largest wireless carrier in the world behind it, the push for mobile video and TV seems like a sure bet to expand subscriber usage far beyond current levels in China. And as smaller carriers such as China Unicom and China Telecom follow suit, marketers will literally be in position to easily place mobile video content — including ads, apps and entertainment — directly into the hands of the Chinese consumer.

No sooner are we out of the back-to-school season than the fourth quarter holiday retail frenzy beckons. The drumbeat has already started as retailers try to read the tea leaves from back-to-school shopping and recent earnings reports as a sort of rough holiday guide. Retailers of all types are casting a sharp eye on inventory management, product mix and timing of promotions as they prepare for holiday sales.

Rob Heller, founder and CEO of DealYard, an online retailer of discounted brand name home goods, spoke with me recently about his company’s preparation for holiday sales, SEO, use of affiliate programs and social media strategies. DealYard buys excess and closeout inventory directly from manufacturers of housewares, tools, personal care items, kitchen appliances, bath fittings and small electronics.

Heller manages DealYard’s strategic direction, along with its operational, technical and financial activities. Previously, he was a founder of MaterialNet.com, a strategic sourcing software provider for Fortune 1000 companies and worked on Wall Street.

eMarketer: What is your outlook for the upcoming holiday shopping season?

Rob Heller:

It’s difficult to gauge. So far, for the first half of this year, we’re up over 10% vs. last year. We’re anticipating solid growth during the holiday season with at least a 20% increase over last year.

eMarketer: What is DealYard doing to prepare for the holiday shopping season?

Heller:

We’ve already begun preparing our direct marketing plan which entails direct mail to our existing customer base with special deals and promotions. Since we recently joined the Commission Junction affiliate program, we’re going to be aggressively trying to bring more affiliates into our program. We’ll be offering them exclusive coupon codes for use on some of the coupon sites.

We’re also becoming more active with social media programs, posting more to the blog which we created a couple of months ago. The blog posts automatically post to our Facebook and Twitter accounts. We anticipate using Facebook and Twitter to offer limited-time exclusive coupons and promotions. For example, for the next three hours customers can use a specific coupon code and save 15% on any order. We also plan to place product reviews and video product reviews on Facebook.

We’ll do deals of the day, directly from our homepage. We’ll promote those through our email program, as well as social media.

eMarketer: What are some of the challenges you face in planning for the holiday season?

Heller:

There are a few challenges because sales are about five to six times greater than they are during the regular season. We have to make sure we are getting all our orders out within a day. With customer feedback being as important as it is, we need to make sure that we get positive feedback from across all of our different channels. That’s always a challenge.

Another challenge is making sure that our customer service department answers customer questions and concerns within a timely manner. We are planning a phone system that will integrate directly with our CRM application so when a customer calls, their information will automatically come up on the computer. We’ll know who they are and that’s going to help us be much more effective.

One of the other real challenges is remaining price competitive on the items that we sell because every few days, our competitors will undercut us and become the low seller. We see a drastic reduction in sales when we get undercut on pricing.

We’re constantly monitoring our competition and seeing where we stand and analyzing our sales per item. If we see a slowdown in our turnover for individual items we try to understand what’s happening. Is it something about the product description? Is the image not clear?

eMarketer: Which product categories will have video reviews?

Heller:

All of our categories. For instance, if we sell a coffee maker or a quesadilla maker, consumers can shoot video of themselves in the kitchen using those items. They would post them to our site.

eMarketer:Do those kinds of product videos or tutorials really help drive sales?

Heller:

Video and written product reviews are very strong. When customers see other customer reviews on the products, it definitely helps drive sales. If there’s a video on the product, and it shows how easy it is to use, combined with well-written customer reviews, that will help drive sales.

eMarketer: Do you think consumer shopping behavior and attitudes will be different this year?

Heller:

They’re going to be very similar to last year. The economic recovery has been very slow and unemployment is still very high. Consumers are still going to be very prudent and price-sensitive. They’ll be looking for the best value and deals they can find.

eMarketer: Have you noticed any patterns in how customers use DealYard? You mentioned customers love the product reviews.

Heller:

Yes, we place reviews on our site powered by PowerReviews and they definitely influence customers’ buying patterns and behavior. Positive reviews combined with good value help drive sales. We’re also finding that for more of our sales, customers are using coupons they access from coupon sites.

For a while, we were telling our customers to either register on our site, or just go through the one-page checkout process. We’re finding that about 85% of them are choosing not to register, and create a username and password. So we recently implemented a one-page checkout to make it easier for our customers.

eMarketer: What are the pitfalls to avoid in preparing for the holiday season?

Heller:

Some of the pitfalls are marketing expenses because during the holiday season, a lot of the comparison shopping engines increase their PPC (pay-per-click) rates by as much as 50%. And if you’re not constantly monitoring and analyzing your ROI, you can waste a lot of marketing dollars. When they raise their CPC (cost-per-click) rates, we put on additional filters and don’t submit as many products to them.

eMarketer: What is DealYard’s approach to holiday advertising and promotions?

Heller:

We dramatically increase the amount of direct email pieces that we send out. We are generating a lot of incentives and coupon codes to our affiliates and to our existing customers. We’re constantly tweaking our organic SEO and trying to increase the amount of PPC campaigns through Google AdWords.

We use a lot of email with our existing customer base. It’s opt-in and we don’t go out and buy lists. We generate new customers through affiliate programs like Commission Junction and ShareASale.com and ongoing organic SEO efforts.

We’re constantly increasing our product base by differentiating our product offerings. We’re on a dozen different marketplaces and comparison shopping engines. We’re looking to add about four or five more marketplaces. It’s really just a matter of submitting a product feed to them and then marketing your products to their customers. They also do organic search to help things along.

eMarketer: Do you have a mobile e-commerce program? If so do you expect mobile shopping to have a significant impact on business this holiday season?

Heller:

About three months ago we implemented a mobile e-commerce platform with our AspDotNetStoreFront application, which makes it so much easier for our customers to transact business via their smartphones. It’s very user-friendly. We didn’t have this mobile platform enabled last year.

Last year, if customers had an iPhone, they could go to DealYard.com and transact but it would be difficult. And for any other smartphones, such as the BlackBerry, it would be nearly impossible. Images appear and instead of rendering horizontally like they’re supposed to, they were vertical on the application. Now that we have a mobile e-commerce platform enabled, it’s easier to transact business. There’s also a live chat mechanism and email capability. You just go to a browser and type in Dealyard.com and the software automatically recognizes that you’re on a smartphone browser.

eMarketer: What have you noticed since the implementation?

Heller:

More people are using it to browse and search for products and they’re also transacting business. You can’t really compare it to last year, because it wasn’t a very significant form of revenue for us. The more people use their smartphones to go to all the different comparison shopping engines they’ll see DealYard’s low prices and be able to do business with us straight from their phones.