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

As consumers plunge into back-to-school fall shopping and well in advance of the holiday shopping season, there’s a new location-based shopping app in town–Shopkick. In case you’re thinking “ho hum, it’s just another app” consider this: By downloading the free app from iTunes, consumers will get direct access to retail offers and earn a currency dubbed “Kickbucks” that can be redeemed for rewards or donated to charity.

Shopkick says it will give consumers who’ve downloaded the app rewards and offers just for walking into participating retailers. When I spoke with Shopkick CEO Cyriac Roeding earlier this summer, he positioned the app as a conversion tool that would enable brick-and-mortar retailers to drive more foot traffic and rev sales.

Last week, Shopkick announced that its geo-retailing service will be deployed at 100 Simon Malls, a big coup, along with previously announced partners Macy’s, Best Buy, American Eagle and The Sports Authority. Best Buy will launch a test-run of the service in over 250 of its stores by Oct. 1. Best Buy, through a spokeswoman told me by email: “This is a part of our broader experiments with technology for consumers, and it’s a facet of our overall, multichannel approach to bridge the physical and digital retail experiences.”

Shopkick says rewards and offers are live now in partner store locations in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and will kick-off in Chicago and other cities in the coming weeks. Within the next four weeks, more than 600 individual stores and 100 Simon-run malls will have fully deployed the technology.

Here’s how the thing works: When consumers enter participating retailers, their smartphones pick up a signal (a technology that retailers install) alerting them to relevant store offers. They receive Shopkick “Kickbucks” just for showing up which can be redeemed for rewards or donated to charity. Roeding takes pains to say that Shopkick is unlike regular GPS technology which requires consumers to check in. Instead, this system enables a seamless communication because of the Shopkick signal which doesn’t require check-in.

I think anything, including this app, that can lure shoppers into stores and drive purchases could be helpful to retailers provided that they tie in with smart, relevant offers. The app can be considered a form of multichannel retailing and could, if enough retail chains sign on and enough consumers download the app, become a decent form of in-store communication. Shopkick hopes, no doubt, that the app will keep shoppers in stores longer, browsing, taking advantage of offers and buying on impulse. The findings of a study by e-Rewards and TNS International found that 13.6% of GenY consumers used their phone to access the web for special offers and coupons while shopping.

If that’s the case, the Shopkick app makes it even easier since consumers won’t have to go out to the mobile web for those offers–they’ll get them automatically and seamlessly via the app.

Participating retailers are expected to deliver in-store deals, and/or added bonuses for scanning barcodes of specific products. For example, shoppers will receive Kickbucks for trying on clothes and scanning a barcode in American Eagle Outfitters dressing rooms. They’ll receive additional Kickbucks for scanning and learning about products and services at Best Buy. The faux currency can also be redeemed for Facebook credits to play online games online, download songs, in-store gift card rewards at participating stores, magazine subscriptions, iPods, and charitable donations.

The app has raised concerns among privacy advocates since offers are personalized based on consumer preferences, previous shopping behavior, interests, location and scans. Quoted in AOL’s Daily Finance, Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said via e-mail: “Shopkick should rename their awards currency ‘kickback’ — instead of ‘kickbuck’ — because you are handing them a treasure trove of your personal data. Consumers have to ask themselves — is this a good trade-off for my privacy? Shopkick’s so-called rewards are really digital bribes so you will gave them carte blanche to collect reams of data on you.”

I’ll reserve judgement until I see how easy the app is to use and how retailers decide the kinds of personalized offers they’ll deliver.

Well, it finally happened. After months, maybe years, of speculation, Twitter pulled the trigger on its ad monetization concept. We can now refer to it by its actual name: Promoted Tweets.

Everything we know about the plan so far is consistent with November 2009 comments by Twitter COO Dick Costolo and a February 2010 blog posting by All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka. That is, Twitter will show sponsored posts in feeds resulting from selected user-initiated searches. For example, when some users search for Starbucks or Best Buy, they’ll see ads from those companies before they see the string of conversational tweets that meet the search criteria. The Wall Street Journal noted that 2% to 10% of Twitter users will be part of the initial rollout, with more to come later.

At the most basic level, Promoted Tweets emulates the Google model of tying relevant advertising to search results. But that doesn’t mean Twitter will necessarily be able to monetize search to the extent that Google has.

Consider the differences between the platforms.

Google users tend to search for archived information, which makes them amenable to advertising as a tradeoff for thorough search data. On the other hand, Twitter users more often search for timely information and, in general, and are less likely to tolerate having their experience stalled by an ad. That being said, if Twitter is able to integrate Promoted Tweets into search results and user timelines as seamlessly as Digg, for example, it’s possible that users won’t be too bothered.

Then there’s the third-party issue. Many Twitter users access the service via external Web and mobile apps, so measuring the effectiveness of the ads will be more challenging for Twitter than for a closed-loop system. And measurability will be critical to the success of Promoted Tweets because the system is based on a CPM model. Even more importantly, Twitter has said it would discontinue ads that don’t measure up to a pre-established set of criteria. Twitter calls this “resonance,” and the factors that go into it include the number of people who saw the post, the number of people who replied to it or passed it on to their followers, and the number of people who clicked on links, according to The New York Times.

So, will Promoted Tweets work? This will depend on how consumers react to having a corporate presence in their Twitter feeds, which in turn will depend on how well Twitter implements this new model. So far, the company is acting cautiously, limiting ads to search results among a small percentage of its users, with a fixed number of brands participating.

It seems smart to float a trial balloon rather than launch a rocket ship. This will allow Twitter to gauge feedback quickly and correct course if necessary—all of which is easier in a limited-scale project.

Consumers have grown accustomed to sponsored search results, so transferring that paradigm from Google/Digg to Twitter is not a huge leap. The real test will come later, when Twitter attempts to run ads in user timelines. Can the company do this while continuing to grow its user base to its stated goal of 1 billion by 2013?

Probably not, but more modest growth fueled in part by this ad platform seems like a reasonable expectation.

Image Credit: Twitter.com

If you accept that your company needs to be involved in social media—as most marketers do—then it’s important to figure out where social media fits within your organization.

Tempting as it might be to compartmentalize social media, most companies find that it gets assimilated into various functional teams, including marketing and communications, sales, customer service, human resources, IT and executive management. Firms from Ford Motor Co. to Dunkin’ Donuts to Hewlett-Packard describe social media as a cross-organizational discipline that touches a wide range of functions.

Best Buy, for example, encouraged hundreds of employees to engage with customers who have questions about the company and its products through Twitter. Dubbed Twelpforce, the feed not only deals with customer service issues that arise through social media, but also functions as marketing vehicle, resulting in tweets like this:

While some businesses, like Best Buy or HP, have attempted to integrate social media across the organization, that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be a dedicated social media department, or at least an individual in charge of the company’s overall social presence. This is essential, particularly at larger companies with complex structures. This person or team needs to work closely with other departments that participate in the social media effort. Promotion and customer service on Twitter is good, but disseminating information learned from Twitter across the organization to drive results is better. See this recent article from our newsletter for more on measuring ROI on social efforts.

In my recently published report, “Where Does Social Media Fit Within an Organization?,” I discuss in detail how different companies have weaved social media into the corporate fabric and demonstrated success at a variety of levels. A key takeaway:

More and more opportunities will present themselves for companies to use social channels to increase their business. The landscape will change rapidly, so tactics that might have seemed irrelevant in 2009 might be on the table in 2010 or 2011. Stay tuned as social channels evolve and be creative in how they are used within an organization.

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Here’s a quick round-up of interviews and social media case studies eMarketer has conducted recently. Take a peek:

• Building Customer Relationships with Kraft: Kelley Woodland of Kraft North America discusses the company’s CRM initiatives and the ways in which consumers and brand loyalists are influencing everything from product development to meal planning tips.
• My Coke Rewards: Combining Mobile and Social Media to Drive Brand Loyalty: We recently chatted with Michael La Kier of Coca-Cola about how the company ties social media and mobile marketing into its My Coke Rewards program to drive brand loyalty.
• How Facebook Can be a Revenue Source for Retailers: A look into Best Buy’s Twelpforce efforts on Twitter, as well as their innovative virtual storefront on Facebook.
• Showing CPGs How to Socialize: Susan Baba of Proctor & Gamble discusses how social media is a way for Dawn “to have a voice other than ‘Hey, I’m your dish liquid.’”
• The Changing Mobile Social Ad Space: Justin Siegel of MocoSpace talk about how the mobile social networking space has evolved and where MocoSpace differentiates itself from some of its larger competitors.
• The Challenges and Opportunities of Mobile Social Networks: Adam Broitman of Circ.us chats about the what’s to come in the emerging mobile social networking space, and how marketers stand to benefit.
• Finding (Southern) Comfort in Online Marketing: Lena DerOhannessian of Brown-Forman discusses the company’s recent switch to all-online advertising and how they are thinking ‘outside the bottle.’
• Going Social for the Holidays (and the Rest of the Year): Gordon Magee of Drs. Foster & Smith chats about the company’s holiday marketing plans and the need for communicating the company’s value and building customer relationships through social media and community.
• Marketing in a Tough Economy: David Lonczak, the Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of drugstore.com, chatted with us about what — despite the recession — his team does to boost sales, retain customers, prioritize marketing initiatives, and more.
• Helping Wal-Mart Get Interactive: Kenny Tomlin of Rockfish Interactive chats with us about the company’s work with Wal-Mart and the social media forecast.
• Clorox: Rewiring The Brand Experience With Social Media: Mary O’Connell of Clorox talks about the company’s efforts to make digital and social media part of its brands’ success. O’Connell referred to creating a new vision of digital marketing that is “rewiring and re-imagining our entire brand experience. Read on.
• The Customer Relationship Management Opportunity on Facebook: Rahim Fazal, CEO of social media application company Involver, says that businesses should assign more value to consumer interactions in social media, and measure the impact over the long term, not just during a promotion.

The interviews and case studies are available in their full form to eMarketer Total Access subscribers only. Every day they have access to new interviews with digital marketing leaders and trendsetting entrepreneurs.