From texting a friend to looking up reviews for a certain
restaurant, society is increasingly incorporating smartphones into their daily
lives. No longer a luxury, smartphones have become cheaper, faster, and more
versatile. According to Nielsen’s third quarter survey of mobile users,
smartphone ownership has reached 43% of all U.S. mobile subscribers; the use of
smartphones has steadily been increasing, with a majority of people under the
age of 44 now using smartphones.
Recently,
Google partnered with Ipsos to research how consumers use their smartphones and
published their findings in “Our Mobile Planet: Global Smartphone Users.” Not
only did they find that smartphone ownership has jumped globally, they found
that consumers are constantly using their mobile devices. From their home to
public transportation, people are frequently using their smartphones to access
the internet to look up local content.
As a result of the increasing popularity of smartphones,
advertisers are shifting to mobile devices as their new platforms. In Korea, a
study has shown that Koreans spend an average of 79 minutes per day using their
mobile devices (excluding calls and texts), while spending an average of 75
minutes per day watching television. With smartphones now capable of streaming
movies and television shows, people are slowing replacing televisions as a
source of entertainment/information. For advertisers, mobile ads are more
attractive as they do not need to worry about limitations on time. Also,
instead of spamming commercials with hopes that they will reach the correct
audience, advertisers can easily tailor advertisements to target specific users,
similarly to online advertising.
Currently, with the help of their Android devices, Google is
dominating the mobile advertisement market. Competitors such as Apple have cut
the minimum price it charges advertisers to run iAd mobile ads to better
compete with Google. And recently, another advertising giant has decided to
enter the fray: Facebook. On February 1, 2012, Facebook signed a deal with
Bango, a firm that deals with mobile payment services, and is expected to
announce its advertising plans this Wednesday in New York. With over 425
million members accessing Facebook through smartphones and tablets, Facebook
will be pursuing mobile advertising as a source of revenue. While they have
stayed quiet on their plans, there is speculation that Facebook is testing ads
that appear like status updates on the news feed. Though they could be
alienating users by bombarding them with ads, the payoff could be huge;
MobileSquared, a British research firm, estimates that Facebook could possibly
generate $653.7 million in the United States alone. As Google’s research has
shown, in order for businesses to reach consumers in the future, they must go
mobile.
Sources:
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