With more mobile phones and tablet devices in the UK than people and television sets, mobile is becoming increasingly important to brands as a means to engage and target relevant consumers. And yet the incredible rise of mobiles and tablets presents new challenges and concerns to advertisers, perhaps making mobile advertising appear more complicated than it should be.
As ever, I believe that brands should be free from the shackles of technical intimidation and should be able to focus on what they have always done best, which is to ensure that a compelling and clear message reaches the right customer at the right time.
In Britain we spend around 127 minutes per day in mobile apps. Increasingly, our mobile devices form a picture of our interests and browsing habits and they know who we are. Perhaps, most significantly, they also know where we are at any given time. The added awareness that location brings to mobile advertising offers new and exciting opportunities for brands and consumers alike. Location-awareness represents a revolution in advertising, messaging and branding. Retail brands are now able to geo-fence around their bricks and mortar stores to appropriately identify when a consumer is near. This means that exclusive offers can be sent to shoppers in the vicinity of a store, or a movie trailer played to customers near a cinema.
The availability of affordable tablet devices is providing the tipping point for consumers to begin abandoning the PC as their primary means of accessing email and Internet. To accompany this, they are even eating into the exclusivity of the television set, by providing consumers with a new way of watching their favourite programmes and films. Recent stats from the BBC show that in March, the number of people accessing BBC iPlayer through a tablet surpassed the smartphone figure for the first time ever.
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