Adobe’s announcement last week that the most recent update of Flash player for mobiles has had a significant impact on the world of mobile marketing.  Most notably it represents a victory for Apple, who opposed the use of Flash on their mobile devices, and a defeat for those who embraced it on theirs.  It also has a significant impact on all mobile marketing activities which can no longer be ported from the flash version of the online marketing on a desktop computer to mobile marketing on portable devices in the future.

Apple’s late CEO and founder Steve Jobs vigorously opposed the use of Flash on the iPhone and iPad citing battery life and frequent crashing as the main reason not to include support for the plugin on Apple’s products.  This was seen as a chink in the iPhone’s armoury by many, with Flash support being a key attribute of many devices, none more so than the Blackberry Playbook that sold Flash as its key advantage over the iPad in its print, television and online marketing, even using the song ‘Flash’ by Queen to emphasise Flash in its products.  The announcement of the death of Flash appears to be nothing short of a PR disaster for the tablet now. 

The news also brings problems for online marketing.  Marketers’ expertise in Flash will no longer have any use when designing marketing content for mobiles.  A lot of online marketing efforts also come from interactive media and games which are becoming more popular on the move as smartphones become more powerful and wireless networks more readily available.  Smartphones also provide many geo marketing opportunities and along with all previous online marketing endeavours, new avenues can only be exploited by making the transition to HTML 5.  Google makes no direct profits from its Android operating system, only from increasing the availability of its search engine where its revenues come from online marketing.  Google will be keen to ensure that mobile marketing’s transition to HTML 5 is as smooth as possible to maintain its online marketing revenues.

Flash player was not built for mobiles and mobile marketing, it has been adjusted from the desktop version that became popular with the growth on the internet on personal computers, and has simply been adjusted for portable devices.  Steve Job’s further criticised the platform for lacking security, security which will prevent more intrusive online marketing techniques.  Many believe Apple was simply not happy at the level of control Adobe had over the plugin and preferred to embrace the open sourced alternative, an irony considering the amount of control Apple retains over its products.  Mobile marketing must respond to the change.