Key Lessons from Ljubljana
Last Thursday, the Alliance hosted the Ljubljana, Slovenia App Strategy Workshop.
Smaato’s Mohamed Ben Hiba, Director of Supply Partners, kicked off the afternoon with the Alliance’s European General Manager, Martin Wrigley, to discuss the state of in-app advertising. This chat gave the audience insight on how the monetization landscape continues to develop.
Rok Zorko (Outfit7) and Tilen Travnik (D-Labs), then sat down with the Alliance’s Sophie Mestchersky to discuss the state of the Slovenian market as well as the challenges of internationalization.
Here are some key lessons from the workshop:
- Banner ads are here to stay: While native advertising has seen increased attention throughout 2014, Mohamed Ben Hiba made it clear that banner ads remain a successful staple in most app’s monetization mix. Outfit7’s Rok Zorko backed Mohamed’s statement by confirming that they see a strong future for banner ads on Talking Tom and Outfit7’s other mobile products.
- Lean towards large markets: Both Rok Zorko and Tilen Travnik made clear that regardless of being a B2C or B2B company, international expansion is key from the start when working from small markets. This sentiment is demonstrated by both companies having offices in London, one of Europe’s key app markets.
- One size does not fit all: Products need to be researched to ensure that key elements work across cultures. Rok Zorko pointed out that if Talking Tom was a skeleton rather than a cat, the Chinese market would be incredibly difficult to crack due to cultural connotations. Similarly, meta-data needs to be specific to each individual market, in terms of design, presentation, and language.
Slovenia was the final App Strategy Workshops in Europe for 2014 but keep an eye out for 2015 events coming to a city near you.
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Events & Marketing Manager
