Why Mobile’s Often Not About Mobility

This week the advertising world takes over Manhattan for Advertising Week. Digiday editors are moderating several sessions during the week. We will also cover the highlights, lowlights and key personalities. Our coverage is made possible by Specific Media.

Mobile is a huge question mark for brands, publishers and agencies.

New research from AOL and BBDO challenges conventional wisdom that mobile is all about utility-on-the-go. After all, 68 percent of people use their smartphone at home. The study, conducted by research firm InsightsNow, found that nearly half of smartphone use is for “me time,” ie, vegging on the couch. Additionally, 70 percent of this behavior is during lean-back experiences, like watching television.

“That gave us a big breakthrough,” said Simon Bond, CMO at BBDO. “Mobile is not always mobile.”

According to the study, advertisers and brand experiences don’t perform very well in that me time. Very often, brands brief agencies about geolocation or building utility as their mobile play. Instead of this approach the study implies conversation should shift away from spending money on  the mobile aspect of mobile.

“We have to retrain ourselves as advertisers, marketers and publishers that mobile is not mobile-on-the-go,” said Christian Kugel, vp of consumer analytics and research at AOL. “So much happens at home, and that has a real fundamental implication in reforming the industry.”

Image via Shutterstock

https://digiday.com/?p=23039

More in Marketing

Marketers are keeping a close eye on Amazon’s shoppable Prime ads this Thanksgiving

Media buyers will be experimenting with new formats over the long weekend. 

The header image shows the silhouette of a woman.

‘You don’t want to be discounting so much’: Confessions of a media buyer on the challenges of an extended Black Friday Cyber Monday

In the latest edition of our Digiday Confessions series, in which we exchange anonymity for candor, we hear from a media buyer on how the extended sales window means brands need to get more creative and the challenges of deeper discounting. 

Google uses search remedies trial to subpoena OpenAI, Perplexity and Microsoft over their generative AI efforts

In an attempt to show AI has created a more competitive search industry, Google is trying to get OpenAI, Perplexity AI, and Microsoft’s strategies to defend its own.