In the last few months, HTML5 seems to be the buzzword for mobile marketers. The advancement of HTML has added to the perplexity of available mobile formats with regards to what to use for mobile marketing and how to use it.  The simplest way to do away with this confusion is to understand what HTML5 offers that its predecessor did not and what it could mean for marketing on mobile.

What is HTML5?
In a nutshell, HTML is a mark-up language that is a framework of individual features or elements that hang together to create structured documents or pages. HTML5 is the latest evolution of this language that adds new elements or features. 

With its new functionality, HTML5 allows the web experience on mobile to be richer without having to build a native mobile application or without using third party technologies, such as Adobe Flash. 

Some of the more interesting new features or semantic elements of HTML5 are:

1. Canvas element
Used for rendering text, graphics and other rich media on the fly without having to use plug-ins

2. Video element
Helps to embed videos without using third-party plug-ins like Apple QuickTime or Adobe Flash

3. Audio element 
Enables playing of sound without using a plug-in

4. Web applications
Enables interaction with web applications without being online

5. Cross document messaging
Exchange information from different web domains to each other

6. Geo location API
Helps pinpoint location information using GPS instead of the traditional approach of detecting the IP address location 

7. Local storage
Provides a way for websites to store information on the computer and retrieve it later. So web content can even be accessed if the connection drops.

However, overcoming mobile browser restrictions will be something of a challenge. Not all browsers would support all new functionality that HTML5 offers now or features that may be introduced in the future. Of course, browser compatibility would increase over time, but keeping track of this progress is essential.

A great way to get started with HTML5 is to create an ideal framework of functionality. Where browsers are not compatible, scale it down so that the user experience is not compromised. Vice versa, a basic framework can be created that is compatible for all browsers and HTML5 functionality can be added based on browser compatibility.

Over time, HTML5 features would evolve and newer ones will be introduced. All of these will help create increasingly richer experiences on a standards based web platform. At present the W3C draft on HTML5 is work in progress (with final recommendations possibly scheduled for 2022!). But many marketers are already adopting these features to create innovative experiences on the worldwide web, and it certainly seems to be a game changer in the way HTML has worked so far.

HTML5 is still evolving and is a work in progress as declared by the World Wide Web Consortium, but the possibilities offered to marketers are immense. 

What does this actually mean for marketers?
How much time would you like back in your working day? Perhaps one of the simplest ways to describe the effects HTML5 could have on the industry would be to draw similarities with how digital recording software changed the music recording business. It lowered the barriers to entry, allowing people to create and distribute a studio quality album from the comfort of their bedroom. 

While at the time some people in the music industry argued that this would be harmful, it allowed some of the most creative and talented people to reach an audience they could have only dreamed about a decade before.

These artists pioneered the way for others to follow, demonstrating that they didn’t need to have the resources to pay for professional studio time or have the technical expertise. The technology did all the heavy lift work, leaving the artist to focus purely on content for the audience.  

Why everything will change with HTML5 
HTML5 and the tools around it help simplify the link between the creative and technical sides of creating campaigns by establishing a direct collaboration between the two. In fact, the creative and the development need no longer be done by two separate people. 

A drag and drop interface makes it easy for a non-technical person to build HTML5 ads and mobile sites that still encompass the richness and interactivity of a native app.  It means that fully functional mobile sites and campaigns can be built with more features and functionality because a lot of development can now be completed within a matter of hours instead of weeks, leaving time for more complex and interesting features. 

What HTML5 means for mobile marketing
HTML5 can help unleash a new generation of creative people in the mobile marketing world, enabling a wave of innovative designers who don’t necessarily have the software coding skills to create mobile sites, apps and ads.

As with many other areas of the economy, this is now a case of the creative industry taking advantage of technology to open themselves up to an entirely new discipline and the dawn of creativity waking up to make effective use of the content it is creating. 

HTML5 is already having a huge impact, providing an alternative to the platform limitations of Flash and the functional limitations of HTML. It will also give companies who need to make frequent product updates the ability to do so without needing app store approval or customer downloads.

However, it is important to remember, than none of this is of any use to marketers if they do not have a clear understanding of what they are hoping to achieve with their campaign – from creative to execution.  A bad campaign is a bad campaign whatever platform you use.

Authors

Gaurang Vartikar, Account Director, Acxiom Ltd

Nick Cockayne, Royal Mail 

Kelaine Olvera, Director of Marketing, Velti

This article first featured in the September 2011 issue of Mobile Messaging, the DMA Mobile Marketing Council’s free e-newsletter. If you would like to receive Mobile Messaging and have articles like this delivered to your inbox, update your preferences here.