A Lesson for Marketers on Mobile Advertising
Bottom
Line:
Advertising through mobile devices could be the way of the future,
but so far marketers have been largely frustrated in their efforts
to take advantage of the medium. Some types of products may be more
suited to mobile ads than others, and their appeal rests on an
unconventional approach that contrasts with traditional advertising
methods.
There’s
no question that mobile phones have become an indelible facet of
modern life. Surveys conducted in 2013 showed that 91 percent of
adults in the United States use some type of mobile phone and about
61 percent have a smartphone; the numbers are even higher among
people in the 18-to-34 age range and households that have incomes of
more than US$75,000—the very demographics that make marketers
salivate.
Accordingly,
U.S. companies’ annual spending on advertising via mobile
devices—usually in the form of a small banner on a Web browser or
smartphone app—skyrocketed from $770 million in 2010 to $4.1
billion in 2012 . Industry forecasters think the number could top
$32 billion in the U.S. by 2017 and more than $62 billion in the
global market.
But
despite all the money flowing toward mobile campaigns, a 2012
questionnaire of global marketing executives revealed that only 14
percent said they were content with their use of mobile advertising
channels. One of the key challenges is the medium: The ads must
display quickly regardless of a consumer’s Wi-Fi strength, so they
tend to contain relatively little information—maybe a logo,
slogan, or snappy message. But despite the limitations, 69 percent
of brand marketers surveyed in 2013 planned to escalate their use of
mobile ads.
To
get a better understanding of whether these ads can actually make
consumers more likely to buy a product, the authors of a new study
collaborated
with a market research agency to analyze the responses from nearly
40,000 consumers to 54 real-world mobile ad campaigns that ran
during a recent three-year period. The overall results were
disheartening—fully two-thirds of the campaigns failed to move the
needle in persuading consumers to purchase the product. But they
nonetheless revealed that mobile ads could be worthwhile for
specific types of products that appealed to consumers’ memory and
information recall.
The
advertised products came from a wide range of industries, including
the automotive sector, consumer packaged goods, entertainment,
financial services, and health and pharmaceuticals. Participants in
the study surfed to one of the many Web pages included in the
agency’s network and were shown an ad for a national brand, or
randomly assigned to a control group that saw no advertisement. In
either case, they were invited to complete a short questionnaire
that measured several aspects of their attitude toward the product
in question, including their prior knowledge of the brand, how much
they used items in that category, and the likelihood they would
purchase the product.
The
results revealed significant room for improvement: 36 of the
campaigns (or 66.7 percent) had either negligible or negative
effects on customers’ attitudes toward the products and their
intentions to purchase them, meaning consumers who never even saw an
ad on their mobile device had a better regard, or roughly the same
regard, for the product. Perhaps the invasiveness of mobile
advertising largely undercuts its intimacy.
Delving
deeper, the authors next classified the campaigns in terms of the
product type—whether the campaign was for a luxury item or for a
more utilitarian one. They also determined how much the products
would affect consumers’ lives. Buying a higher-involvement
product, such as a car or a computer, carries more consequences and
entails more deliberate decision making. Evaluating
lower-involvement products, such as household goods or common retail
items, doesn’t require as much critical thinking.
A
major wrinkle emerged. Ad campaigns on mobile devices were effective
only for products that were both
higher-involvement and functional—in
other words, products that consumers used on a regular,
goal-oriented basis but nonetheless considered carefully before
purchasing. Examples include medication, the family car, a bank
account, or (appropriately) a mobile phone.
Drawing
on psychological research, the authors posit that in the mobile
format, when people are likely to be distracted, ads work better for
products that strike an immediate chord with consumers and contain
relatively little hard information. These ads trigger memory cues
that lead consumers to quickly recall their stowed-away thoughts
about brands, products, or industries, rather than making them focus
on overwhelming amounts of new information. This triggering is
likely to occur more for everyday products that mean a lot,
emotionally and pragmatically, to consumers, than for items they
regard as special or far removed from their regular lives.
And
the findings also indicate, on a broader scale, that the
proliferation of mobile devices has ushered in a new way of thinking
about advertising. Historically, marketers have tried to persuade
consumers with new information or unique claims about their
products. Either that, or they’ve hit consumers over the head with
repetitive commercials that try to seep into their consciousness
over time. Instead, to exploit the small and intimate appeal of
mobile display ads, advertisers should try to appeal to consumers’
memory and thought processing—in this medium, a simple slogan
might lead to a deep rethink.
But
there’s still hope for marketers of products that are more
hedonistic or that involve less rumination in purchasing decisions.
When utilizing this kind of advertising, they should emphasize the
functional and thought-provoking aspects of their brands. The
authors cite the example of a luxury car—it’s a self-indulgent
acquisition. Mobile ads should therefore underscore its safety
features, in a nod to functional and high-involvement aspects,
instead of its top speed, sporty design, or one-time-only sales
price.
Source:
Which
Products Are Best Suited to Mobile Advertising? A Field Study of
Mobile Display Advertising Effects on Consumer Attitudes and
Intentions,
by
Yakov Bart (INSEAD), Andrew T. Stephen (University of Pittsburgh),
and Miklos Sarvary (Columbia University), Journal
of Marketing Research,
June 2014, vol. 51, no. 3
http://www.strategy-business.com/blog/A-Lesson-for-Marketers-on-Mobile-Advertising?gko=fb067&bt_alias=eyJ1c2VySWQiOiIyODc4MzM4NiJ9
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