The most striking finding of this report, says the summary, is the increased breadth of mobile advertising formats that consumers are noticing. 23% of Smartphone users recall seeing SMS advertising, but 20% saw ads in mobile social networks and 15% saw ads in mobile TV/video. In just three months, the number of Smartphone users seeing ads inside a location-based network has almost tripled to 15%. At current growth rates, the study predicts that some of these formats will surpass mobile web and/or SMS in 2009.
Awareness of Mobile Advertising | ||
| Percent of Respondents Seeing Mobile Ads | |
Mobile Format | iPhone Users | Non iPhone Users |
Any format | 59.3% | 38.2% |
SMS | 22.5 | 17.6 |
Mobile web | 28.4 | 10.7 |
Social network | 19.6 | 7.3 |
MMS | 17.1 | 7.1 |
TV/Video | 14.8 | 5.2 |
LBS | 15.4 | 4.3 |
Game | 7.1 | 3.7 |
Mobile radio | 9.3 | 3.6 |
Source: Brightkite & CfK Technology, Q1 2009 |
Demographically, men showed the greatest quarterly increase in mobile ad awareness, jumping to 43% in Q1 '09 from 33% the quarter before. The report's authors ascribed the increase to usage growth in mobile Internet, social network, games and radio among the 18-24 age group, whose ad awareness shot to 59% this last quarter from 47% at the end of last year. Ad awareness among women remained steady at about 34%.
The report says that, in addition to being more aware of mobile advertising, phone users are quickly adopting a much broader set of mobile services:
Use of Mobile Services by Phone Type | ||
| Percent of Users | |
Mobile Service | iPhone Users | Non iPhone Users |
SMS | 81.1% | 65.7% |
MMS | 62.9 | 43.1 |
Played a Game | 50.2 | 30.0 |
Mobile web | 55.8 | 30.1 |
LBS | 38.3 | 14.3 |
Social network | 33.0 | 10.3 |
Mobile TV/Video | 27.2 | 8.1 |
Mobile radio | 6.3 | 3.8 |
Source: Brightkite & CfK Technology, Q1 2009 |
Jonathon Linner, Brightkite's CEO "... we are seeing consumers adopting a much broader set of mobile applications and services... exposing them to new ad formats... iPhone users are almost as likely to see ads in a mobile social network as they are in a text message... unthinkable 12 months ago."
Colin Strong, head of Mobile Communications Research at GfK Technology, concludes that "... mobile advertising, WAP and SMS, are going to be caught up to, and perhaps surpassed, by ads inside of other applications and services."
To learn more from Brightkite and GfK Technology, please visit here.