We recently read a media agency blog post about the "rise of Android tablets" and how marketers should "take note of the new offerings" that incorporate the Android operating system, as well as the new Kindle Fire and Google's far-off offering. The post ended by claiming that marketers need to think about if they should be developing creative for these "new" offerings. 

This just makes us wince.

Clearly, anyone who has been utilizing Android AND iOS platforms knows that the unit sizes are standard for the most part (see IAB specs above).

What's frustrating is that people are talking about tablets as if they are just another place to put banners. What we've come to realize is that it's not the specs that are important, but how people USE devices that is. For example, we recently ran a campaign across all online media on all platforms. We found that the way people interacted with our ads on tablets varied WILDLY from how they interacted with their mobile devices such as phones and iPod Touch, and even desktop browsing. There are differences, and it's the way consumers use these devices that's important, not what platform they are on. Someone running Ice Cream Sandwich on their phone isn't browsing differently from iOS on an iPhone, but it is different from ANY tablet. That's what's key here. You need to have an online objective in place first, and then the device will fall into place from that.

The next time someone talks about the "rise of tablets", ask them what that exactly means for a marketer who is looking to increase time on the site-side. Chances are they are just paraphrasing something they read in the trades.