Apple has once again cut the price of its mobile advertising platform iAd, according to a report.
Introduced with much hoopla in April 2010, iAds were only open to advertisers spending $1 million or more, including JCPenney, Citigroup and Nissan. In February, though, reports surfaced that the bar had fallen to $500,000. Now Bloomberg‘s reporting that the campaigns can be had for as little as $300,000 — a 70% drop from the initial price.
Reps from Apple could not be reached for comment.
The price-cutting is a setback for iAds, which Apple CEO Steve Jobs dubbed “mobile ads with emotion.”
Noah Elkin, an analyst at eMarketer, says Apple may be trying to make the ads less exclusive. “Apple is never about mass appeal, but this is really about making the upfront cost more manageable for a greater variety of advertisers,” he says. “[It] rekindles marketer interest in something that got a lot of fanfare last year, but hasn’t been talked about that much lately.”
To address the lack of demand for the platform, Apple has been âquietly staffing upâ a sales force in New York for iAds, according to Advertising Age. Last month Apple hired Carrie Frolich, former head of digital for media-buying firm MEC, as head of agency relations. Frolich reports to iAd chief Andy Miller, who reports to Steve Jobs.
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