Remember when Apple launched iAd? It was April 2010 and Steve Jobs (below) took to the stage to explain Apple’s vision for mobile ads. The iAd platform initially wowed many in advertising, promising rich, video-led, immersive experiences for consumers. There would be ads within apps, created using HTML5 – a new era is advertising dawned. As Jobs explained at the time: “We do not have plans to be a worldwide ad agency. We don’t know a lot about advertising, but we’re learning. We tried to buy AdMob, but Google snatched them up because they didn’t want us to have them, so we bought another smaller company, Quattro. But we’re babes in the woods.”
Babes or not, Apple’s asking price for placement ads in iAd at the time was a cool one million dollars. Apple would sell and host the ads, giving 60% of ad revenue back to developers. On the face of it appeared to offer a great solution to the worrying fact that most app developers don’t make money from their apps.
Skip forward to this week in 2012, and the dream of iAds ruling the ad industry has somewhat waned. AdAge.com recently reported that Apple was now just looking for $100,000 in order to place adverts within iAds. Last year the asking price was $500,000. You can see where this is going.
iAds was a good idea and it offered the chance to change mobile ads for the better. However, with ad budgets being slashed and marketers still not convinced of the ROI of mobile advertising, it looks like iAds will have to wait a while more for its day in the sun.

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