The mobile phone is quickly becoming the new must-have accessory as consumers start to treat their smartphones as a virtual extension of their bodies. For most of us, if we’re honest, the smartphone is quickly replacing our short-term memory, but that’s another topic for another day. It’s no surprise with smartphones accounting for 40% of all mobile phones in use that time spent on the mobile Internet has increased 54% in the past year. Consumers are spending three+ hours weekly on mobile sites. What are people doing? A little bit of everything. Top mobile categories include: email, weather, social networking, search, news, navigation, sports and entertainment.
Should advertisers take the leap into mobile advertising just because everyone is talking about it? Absolutely not. The safe and smart approach is to treat mobile as an extension of your display advertising to provide accessible, useful, and relevant content.
Reaching a consumer on-the-go via a mobile phone offers a vastly different experience than reaching them at their desks and home computers. It’s important for mobile advertising to be either useful or entertaining. Both are even better. According to Yahoo, three quarters of mobile owners accept advertising as part of the mobile experience, especially if it means they can access content for free. Providing consumers with something of value has proven to significantly increase consumer engagement. For example, offering custom playlists via mobile results in consumer interaction rates nine times higher than on the web. Based on our experience, we have seen brand awareness nearly double when running an interactive ad in an iPad magazine app vs. the magazine itself. With 83% of 20-something women sleeping with their phone next to them each night, why not do something useful, such as greet them in the morning with their personal beauty forecast as they check the weather?
Women with children are a growing mobile demographic I’m particularly interested in, being a mom myself. More and more moms rely on their smartphones to organize and run their family activities. In fact, 53% percent of moms purchase a smartphone after having a baby. Moms are busy. Really busy. Moms like me are searching for that perfect balance of connection to family and to the rest of the world. Which is why mobile advertising should meet a mom where she is. That is, instead of trying to drive her to your website to find your product, design a mobile add featuring, say, a shopping list tool. You’re offering her something that will help her to be the efficient super-mom that she wants to be, while at the same time increasing the likelihood she’ll consider purchasing your product.
Mobile is a growing, evolving, important part of modern life—and it’s only going to become more central to the way we live our lives. Consider this somewhat shocking statistic: 25% of all toddlers have used a smartphone. A more personal sign that mobile is already a way of life for Generation Z: My 4-year-old can beat me in Angry Birds any day!
Making the Most of Your Mobile Display Advertising
by Perficient Author on September 20th, 2011 | ~ minute read
