Australian agencies’ miserable mobile failure
Many of Australia’s biggest advertising and digital agencies have failed to get to grips with how their sites are viewed on mobile devices, research by digital agency Reactive has indicated.
The problem is particularly acute for agencies that rely purely on Flash websites without an alternative available to devices such as Apple iPhones and iPads which do not display Flash.
The survey was carried out by Reactive MD Tim O’Neill after seeing a similar posting from the US.
He took screen grabs of how each agency’s site looks on an iPhone:
From the looks of things, their mobile experts are every bit as talented as their social media experts.
But these are – except for Deepend – not digital-only agencies?
troll bait 101.
#Denigrate the competition
Though if the same website are looked on any other android powered phone, the sites come up fine.
Funny, they all look fine on my Android phone… so maybe its the devices that have the issue.
Some website developers will make some money soon 😀
Says it all, really.
Glad to say at least the ZenithOptimedia crew have a mobile formatted website:
http://www.zo-au.com
http://mark.com.au
Win.
http://thecampaignpalace.com/
Another win.
Looking at the analytics data from the many sites we manage, Android devices account for between 1-2% of mobile device visits, whilst iOS devices account for around 95% of mobile traffic.
Works fine on Android. Maybe you need to refer this issue to Apple. I believe they are changing their policy on Flash due to designer and developer backlash.
The cobblers’ children always go shoeless and all that.
Seriously though, how many visits a month do agencies get to their site? Not many I’d wager – really not that much of an issue.
Having said that, a simple mobile optimised page with contact details would make a lot of sense, for people on the way to meetings etc.
Seems like a digital marketing 101 kinda thing would you say?
http://www.permission.com.au
Permission works on mobile!
So clients are looking for agencies on their mobiles now hey? Or just other agencies trying to make a point?
I guess if they were dedicated digi agencies or those who claim to have digi at the core I’d see it as a bit of a fail.
(According to a nice little article on AdAge this week) 2nd rule of mobile: what is your audience doing on their mobile and what sort of handset are they likely to be using? Looking at agency websites? I would imagine if they had sense they’d be looking at the agency’s works and promo sites to gauge how good they are with mobile.
According to John Galloway from Hyper Factory last week, only 12 -15% of smartphones in Australia are iPhones…
just sayin…
Just happens to coincide with Reactive launch their new site this week. Prior to that their site looked shit on a mobile too.
http://online.deloitte.com.au
Another win
ha – so what? who wants to visit their sites on mobile anyway?
A BETTER study would be looking at the digital products produced by these agencies and seeing if they are mobile compliant. thats what i would care more about if i was to do business with these guys.
IPhones don’t support Flash.
Most of these sites are inaccessible: to the blind, and to Google.
Look at the Google text cache for these same sites:
BMF:
http://webcache.googleusercont.....38;strip=1
Ikon
http://webcache.googleusercont.....38;strip=1
What’s new here??
what a useless exercise.
Wilhaus and Dino – I agree, it’s not likely that prospective clients are researching for agencies on their iPhone.
But current (or prospective) clients may like to look up a phone number or address of their agency (at least).
The Home page and Contact Us pages are by far the most viewed on mobiles based on analytics for our site.
The plumber with a leaky tap.
I would rather see an agencies work for clients than see the time they’ve spent making their own site look good. It comes back to Kathy Sierra’s graphic: http://headrush.typepad.com/ph.....uythis.jpg
Tom
The thing is, it’s very, very simple to setup some browser detection and redirect iPhone users to a simple page showing contact details or what have you. Sites showing the default Flash error on the front page are not doing enough.
Now if only they contacted AppsWiz.
We specialise in Mobile.
Facilitate a wide choice of Services as to how they can access the information they want, when they want it via their specific handset or tablet.
Evelyn Miles
M: +61 4 32 230 092
E: evelyn@appswiz.com
http://www.appswiz.com
@Harley – any good examples of a script you’d recommend so we can all add it to our sites then?
Here and here are a good place to start. You can either do it in javascript or in the web server configuration.
Maybe they’re all too busy creating advertising.
two letters for you…UX!
Another win for iOS is George Patts site http://www.gpyr.com.au/
Check out http://www.wapple.net for an easy to use, cloud delivered, service which allows easy mobile website creation and optimisation for anyone. As @Harley says, it really is very easy.
Check out mobile agency The Hyperfactory http://www.thehyperfactory.com/
Kick ass site
And another win
http://jwt.com
Also checkout QuickSites http://www.quicksites.mobi, a very powerful and very easy to use mobile site creation tool currently powering many agencies, companies and brands.
Adelaide crew 2moro created the mobile site for a ski Resort in Niseko Japan… Has 3 versions – Mid, High and iPhone..
live lift status, video snow reports and Accommodation and Services search.
http://mobile.skihanazono.com
What a pointless exercise… Tim have you nothing better to do than slag the competition? Shameless self promotion when if you checked a little while ago, Reative’s site would have also been unreadable!
Agency websites are useless on the whole anyhow. I guess for a creative agency it is good to showcase your work, but who assesses an ad agency using their iphone? It makes no sense.
http://www.nakedcommunications.com.au
(looks fine on mobile, but really we just through we’d get in on the cheap ploy to improve our search ranking 😉
Funny Reactive raising this. Kinda points attention to the fact that their new site is very similar to the very well know Academy site.
I think I’d prefer a site that doesn’t work that one that is copied.
Judge for yourself:
http://www.reactive.com/
http://www.weareacademy.com/page/projects/
And for all the other agencies jumping in and saying your site actually works: It makes you look really silly when they aren’t optimised for mobile. If you really think any of these sites work well on mobile then you really have no clue what good mobile creative is.
Hate to disappoint the oodles of marketing agencies jumping at the idea of posting their site here in order to boost their search ranking, but each of these links have nofollow on them, and Google won’t assess their appearance on this site.
An issue that has been a part of Grudens best practice in designing sites for some time. For an in depth explanation go to – http://blog.gruden.com/2009/04.....-friendly/
Might have been more interesting if the list included pure-play digital agencies.
Yes, in my down time I browse agency websites on my phone. 4 f sake people. When will u learn. We hire agencies because of great creative (and strategic) people who can help us win. Mark (fake M and C) Campaign Palace (who the f are u anyway) and Reactive (web dev pig with lipstick) we don’t care about your mobile sites. We care about u helping us compete. Unfortunately for u (and all u media agencies) u are just cogs in the production and placement machine.
There are some agencies that can change the way people think with an ad. We hire them. We pay them. We then spend an f load on placing the ad. That’s it. Stop crying. Stop faking.
Agree with many of the comments above.. most agencies have not really bothered with how their site might render to mobile (and many are awful or just won’t work at all) .. but I also agree that very little mobile traffic will ever visit an agency’s site.. but some will… and if just one of those is a client wanting to get a flavour for how that agency regards the mobile channel.. they will quickly realise that it is paid little heed. If that client is one of the many who already regard mobile as an important touchpoint, then his budget may go elsewhere…
It doesn’t cost much to put up a site optimised for mobile and re-direct mobile traffic there
Mr Client, do you also hire them to help with your spelling?
I always enjoy the number of anon posters in this kind of conversation…!
Agreed, that for a lot of the creative done by these agencies, and the way that clients are finding the large agencies (probably not through a Google search!) it’s not really that important from a business sense.
From a design and self-pride sense, these design agencies seem to spend mega money on office setups, their own identity design, etc – seems odd their websites get left behind.
I wonder if they are struggling to keep up with the digital age, they’ve spent a huge amount of time on developing TVC’s, identity, strategy, etc. They all do a great job with that, however web and digital has sort of been a ‘bolt on’ extra that no one really knows too much about. Creatives/designers in these work places would generally have had no background in UX, web, code, or anything – but by using Flash which kind of behaves a bit like illustrator, they can mash together something that gets the job done, but is very half-arsed and unnecessary.
They would be best off setting up dedicated web area of their business, hiring experts in the area, not just slotting in designers who are wanting to have a go at a website, or even buying up a smaller web-shop that is good at what they do (which is exactly what Deloitte did).
Form over function at it’s finest.
Anyone still promoting or selling Flash for websites is way out of the game.
I so love all that stuff that looks pretty but is essential un-usable.
Adam, bad websites can be made with any software mate. I’ve seen numerous terrible sites built without Flash being anywhere near! The quality of the outcome has little to do with the software used.
My point is… What is the point of Flash?
iPhone is leading the shift away from desktop to handheld browsing at a blinding pace.
Actually, the shift is away from browser based services alltogether.
Besides facebook games and the self-serving window dressing that basically only agencies employ it for now, there will be no place for Flash in about 2 years time.
Web pages themselves will be all but extinct (or at least boutique) in 10 years as users move toward mobile app. based internet services in-turn driving major businesses to offer these services.
Essentially this will leave Flash high and dry without a platform to run on.
People don’t have time to stop and smell the roses that is a stunningly visual flash site. In this emerging phase (3.0) of the web, people want access to web-based services quickly and easily. Specifically only 3-4 functions max per website. This is where the mobile app. will realise dominance.
cheap imitation
Yet this survey – yes it’s an Adobe survey – reveals that 80% of businesses are choosing to deploy mobile websites as opposed to mobile apps. http://www.adobe.com/aboutadob.....urvey.html
And if you must have an app, Apple is actually allowing Flash developed apps now… so it Flash have a platform…
up..http://www.pcworld.com/article.....offin.html
By the way, I couldn’t care less about Flash, just thought your comments, which are not supported by reality, couldn’t be left unchallenged.
A controversial article on Mumbrella? No!!!!
Adobe are still developing flash apps for the iPhone and iPad so I wouldn’t worry too much for now.
The growth of Android handsets and devices will continue to grow and more and more people are moving away from Apple and onto Samsung, HTC and other Android handsets/devices.
As the “client” you also need to see what amount of traffic your site is receiving from iPhone/iPad devices.
Reactive are spruiking they have a new html5 homepage that looks pretty shite and wouldn’t really pass a good UEX or UIA test. They do have a valid point in that creative and digital agencies should practice what they preach and build a non flash version for users wanting to access their site from a non flash device alla Apple 😉
I don’t really care if Reactive are deemed to be spruiking or what their product is like. Well done to them for throwing the cat among the pigeons and creating some buzz and conversation around the topic. Awareness. Tick.
Point is.. mobile is growing rapidly.. many agencies are falling behind and there are low cost solutions to getting on board and learning about this growth medium.
Yeah what a pesky issue – it’s the brands that care about it who do well! magnifine glasses are selling out at the $2 Dollar Shops
I remember the days when having a website was cool and people not really understanding the medium (or were scared of it) would say an online site was not relevant. We know what happened on this front.
This is the same for mobile. Mobile is part of the same family as digital…so if your game is offering digital in any form you need to have a mobile site…….not a half baked optimised website that looks “OK” on a IPhone (and let’s face it my 90 year old grandma looks approachable when viewed through safari on my 3GS)…but a true mobile site that optimises per handset with device detection, dynamic images that display according to screen size and bite size chunks of information that you can read on the fly.
You need to back this site up with some tight MOBILE SEO activities and maybe throw in a mix of targeted mobile media from display, display performance and perhaps a QR code to keep the techies happy.
Mobile is here to stay whether you like it not. Smartphones are about to hit 50% penetration in Australia. That’s more than 10Million handsets or roughly 50% of the population that have a personal device that they could use to interact with your company/brand for the first time. The question really is what sort of experience do you want them to have ?
@ Sarah L.. (aka Gen Y bovva lernin to rite wen I can speak innit)
Would you explain your point one more time please? For Gen X? Sumfink 2 do wiv magnifine glasses… which are what exactly?
Reactive’s claim to launching a mobile version of their site for Metro trains is completely comical.
All of a sudden they are ‘mobile experts’, because they are providing some formatting to iPhones devices…. I just accessed the site on my HTC Desire Android device…. FAIL!!!!
C’mon guys you are doing an injustice to the rest of the established mobile market for some cheap publicity and hope of getting some runs on the board with potential clients.
From experience in the local market NO traditional online agencies currently have the experience or capabilities in delivering successfully to the 10,000+ different handset profiles out there. This can only be accomplished through acquiring the relevant information over a long period of time, not jumping on with the latest buzz.