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

S4 Capital trades billable hours for outputs as AI redraws agency economics

Sir Martin Sorrell’s AI bet: fear billable hours, more output-based deals.

Ad Tech Briefing: Public companies’ first loyalty is to shareholders — why do advertisers give them an easy time?

Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit attendees call foul, claiming IPOs encourage murkiness amid ad tech providers.

Ad veteran Peter Naylor joins Kochava board, and sees opportunity in market flux

Nearly a year after he left Netflix, ad industry veteran Peter Naylor is back as a board member at ad tech business Kochava.