Could you eat a Chinese meal with only one chopstick? Potentially you could manage to eat some of the food by holding the bowl in a certain manner and trying to scoop some of it into your mouth.

It would be hard though and eventually you’d give up, wouldn’t you? Not having your digital assets available and accessible in a consumer’s chosen format is like trying to eat Chinese food with one chopstick.

You can get by, sort of, but eventually you’ll need to ask for a fork.

Everyone has been talking about “the year of mobile” for the last several years. While we’ve all been talking about it, mobile has come in and made itself at home. And it’s definitely not going anywhere.

By 2016, over half the world’s population will go online via a mobile device and by 2020 it’s estimated there will be over 30 billion connected devices. Presumably most will be controlled via a smartphone.

A recent study in America among teens and the young found that 87 per cent always had their smartphone nearby. Four in five said the first thing they did in the morning was reach for their device.

Collectively, we check our mobiles 100 billion times a day… that’s some serious attention we are giving these devices.

As many as 94 of the world’s Top 100 companies currently do not have a mobile enabled website. This is quite surprising when you consider there are currently 2.9 billion people accessing the internet via mobile devices.

Regionally, 37 per cent of the top 100 sites in the UAE are not mobile friendly rising to 44 per cent in Saudi Arabia. These are even more interesting figures when we live in one of the most connected areas of the world with smartphone penetration in the UAE standing at 78 per cent, according to Nielsen, and which is 10 per cent above the US.

Search is now mobile-first with figures showing that 51 per cent of Google searches are now done on a mobile. In April, Google introduced mobile-friendliness into its search strings. This is a tremendous shift and marketers and brands need to now think mobile first, browser second.

Unfortunately, in the region mobile as an advertising medium is lagging behind the rest of the world. While it can be argued that mobile is still a relatively new channel here, there is still chronic under-investment in mobile. Only 20 per cent of total digital spend is currently allocated to mobile.

Which equates to only 5 per cent of total advertising spend. The reality is in our region that 80 per cent of the mobile investment that is being undertaken is still directed at SMS flash sales and quick response codes.

As we’re all too aware, this is often abused and is not permission-based.

Consumers are far ahead of brands and advertisers in this area. We need to move to where the users are and where they are going to be in the future, not rely on adding a bit of digital and a bit of mobile and hoping that will suffice. Brands and advertisers need to realise mobile cannot be a bolt on and has to be part of a much bigger campaign.

It can no longer be run in silo and needs to be considered as part of a comprehensive consumer journey.

Some brands have already been quick to step up to the opportunities the shift has opened up. One of the more accessible ways to enter the mobile space is via an app. Most high-street banks in the UAE offer apps for customers to be able to control their finances and this allows the consumer another touch-point with the brand and enhances usability.

The UAE Government is also doing well in the mobile space. The ‘Smart City’ initiative aims to allow government services to be conducted via mobile. The Dubai police app allows the payment of fines, traffic accidents where no one is hurt, and minor crimes to be reported as well as requesting a good conduct certificate.

The culture in Mena is still primarily centred around stores, and while online transactions last year in Mena grew by 45 per cent there is still some way to go before e-commerce overtakes traditional brick-and-mortar commerce.

With the current store-based culture, marketers should use mobile to direct consumers into shops. Brands should take advantage of customers bringing digital devices into their store and help drive better purchase decisions.

They need to target consumer mobiles when near their location with offers and personalised ads which are more likely to convert in store than online.

Wayne Gretzky once said: “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be”.

Mobile is already here and good marketers know they need to be playing in this space. Great marketers know they’re already in it and thinking about how mobile is connecting the brand and the consumer and where it will go next.

The writer is the Marketing Manager at MediaCom.