It seems a contradiction to call something mobile advertising when the person viewing it is more likely to be sat at home than out and about. But that’s what has happened; with smartphone ownership pushing past 70% of the UK population, we use our phones wherever we go - including when we are at home. Recent research by Blis has shown that UK consumers spend more time on their smartphone there than any other location, and this in turn is beginning to change the way that brands target their mobile advertising.
The evolution of mobile advertising has been focused on the ability to reach consumers wherever they are. Data restrictions meant that adverts were focused on immediacy rather than depth. But as mobile devices have become more ubiquitous, the ways in which we use them has evolved and become more nuanced. The result is that that brands who want to drive meaningful engagement need to understand the context behind these usage patterns - with the home very much the starting point.
With most people now spending more time browsing the web on their mobiles than laptops or PCs, it can be tempting for advertisers to just aim for the lowest common-denominator and focus only on the mobile screen. But consumer behaviour is far more granular; our smartphones are just one of the connected devices that we use on a daily basis. In fact, our research paints a picture of consumers right across the demographic spectrum being completely comfortable shifting between mobiles, laptops and tablets depending on context, location and mood. So the first and most important lesson is that if brands are to capitalise on the opportunity that this multi-device behaviour presents, they must grasp the context in which consumers are using these different mobile devices, and apply this insight when developing advertising campaigns if they want them to be relevant and effective.
In two years from now more than half of Britons will own an iPad, Kindle or similar tablet device – that’s on top of the 72% of the UK population who already own a smartphone. So being able to build an understanding of where and when someone may be using a particular device will become an even more crucial factor in driving brand engagement. Variables like whether someone is using a 3G, 4G or WiFi connection in conjunction with their physical location can have a huge impact on whether someone will click on an ad or not; if I am out shopping I don’t want to see video-heavy ads that will hog bandwidth.
Any brand that wants to be successful needs to understand all these variables, and show consumers something that fits with both their behaviour and location. And this is why brand engagement needs to start at home; it’s the place where we use our devices the most, and where we are most likely to respond to advertising. When brands get this right, the results are clear; 39% of consumers we spoke to said they were more likely to click on ads which took their location into account, and were twice as likely to engage with mobile advertising than if they were outside the home.
Advertising has reached an inflection point with half of all UK spend now on digital ads. Mobile advertising is currently less than half of this digital spend, but is the fastest area of growth - driven in part by the radical change in behaviour mobile devices have created. From what the UK’s consumers have told us, the brands that will find the most success in this new landscape are the ones which best understand the context of when, where and how people engage with their content in order to create unique, and valuable experiences that form lasting brand connections.
By Charlie Smith, Managing Director UK of BlisMedia.
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