Creating an interactive mobile marketing experience with Flash and HTML5

Make it flashy

And by flashy, we mean the archaic but easily accessed interactive web element known as Flash. Every coder worth their salt is able to code in Flash and design basic, but accessible campaigns. Flash has been around for a decade and has helped the user to evolve in leaps and bounds. But how can it benefit your mobile marketing campaign? Simply put, Flash looks great on certain mobile platforms (not iOS though, Apple refuses to support it) and performs smoothly on even the most basic of handsets.

So it works well, and looks great, right? Not quite. Flash can be a nightmare for some mobile marketers who are looking to simply fill a gap. And overuse of Flash is one of the worst offences that a mobile website can perform. Imagine being faced with a website, on a tiny handset which screams confusion from every angle. This is a possibility if Flash is overused. It should be used sparingly and if you need it to be interactive, it should be as simple as possible. Millions of screens to click through to fill in a few simple details is not ideal.

HTML5, the future

Many of the modern smartphones support the "new Flash" known as HTML5, a standardised coding format which creates Flash-like elements without the bugs which are prevalent in a Flash environment. It's fast, lean and exceptionally powerful if used by a savvy development team. HTML5 is also a cross-platform language, therefore if you run an HTML5 application on one phone, the likelihood is that it will run on the others.

So what are the benefits and downfalls of HTML5? For one, HTML5 is cleaner than Flash, but there are not many "HTML5 gurus" who can deliver the same results as Flash. These experts are still getting to grips with the application and mobile marketers may become frustrated with the slow development cycle of HTML5 applications.

On the flipside, a correctly programmed HTML5 mobile marketing application will save your business a fortune in revenue. Imagine the possibility of having to only program one app for every user. HTML5 makes this possible. And all within a native environment.

Going forward

So what can mobile marketers take from this? They need to choose the correct tool if they want to succeed in the interactive mobile marketing game. Flash is more prevalent, HTML 5 is more powerful. Choose your weapon wisely.