Mobile connectivity has now matured and seems to be used by nearly everyone, but the fight for platform supremacy continues to rage across carriers, continents, device manufacturers and software systems.
While some adult specific moves in 2014 were significant to open up new carriers, channels and regions for mobile adult content, the much bigger stories came out on the mainstream hardware side of the tech industry and will likely shape the way adult companies can make the most of their mobile offerings in the years to come.
Devices are also now adding new abilities that monitor heart rate and other physical features that may be intriguing to adult companies but will likely remain off limits.
Mobile Screen Sizes Are Growing And Will Continue To Expand
“It’s a lot like desktop screen sizes used to be when people were locked into the idea that 800x600 and then 1024x768 as enduring standards — even though history has shown us people always gravitate toward ever larger screens and better resolutions when they become available,” said Sarah of ZuzanaDesigns.com. “Samsung capitalized on this concept with the Note series of handhelds, and while Apple continues to say some screens are too big for mobile, their new iPhone 6+ with a much larger screen has their actions speaking a lot louder than their rhetoric. I expect phones and tablets to converge in the coming year with an optimal size that is larger than what many sites now support. At a bare minimum, it really is imperative that site owners embrace responsive web design for their mobile displays and prepare for the impact that 4K video will soon have on consumer expectations as well.”
New Hardware And Monetization Methods May Lock Out Adult Offerings
Unlike desktop computer hardware which has always been agnostic to the kinds of services and computations marketers can complete, mobile devices have always been far more locked down and difficult to access for developers who are interested in selling adult products or services. That trend is also accelerating. Apple is getting into the wearable market with a new iWatch that will not allow adult content any more than the iTunes store already doesn’t.
Devices are also now adding new abilities that monitor heart rate and other physical features that may be intriguing to adult companies but will likely remain off limits. ApplePay and similar initiatives from their competitors are seeking to streamline billing methods too, but the common denominator is that each is far from adult friendly, and with Apple’s puritanical history, Amazon’s decisions to pull erotic e-books off its shelves and Google’s recent change to Adwords policy — pushing adult content forward as part of these new features will require a lot of imagination and creativity.
Cultural Marketing Is Increasingly Important In New Regions
Check the bid prices on major traffic network auctions and you’ll see some of the “emerging markets” are now tracking much closer to U.S. and E.U. asks due to far greater bid volume. Part of this trend stems from the recent grown of mobile use in areas like India where adult products are starting to see greater sales results. Companies at the forefront of mobile marketing in these regions are doing more than just translating a few words, they are engaging consumers with cultural marketing cues that help consumers feel right at home buying memberships from them in their own language.
