A survey on what Britain’s young people think about receiving advertising messages on their mobile phones shows that targeting advertising messages to the individual recipient is the key to success with the difficult 11-20 market.
Only 32% of the 11-20 year olds surveyed said they would be happy to receive advertising messages to their mobile phones. However, these numbers more than doubled when they were asked if they would like to receive advertising messages targeted to their particular interests - 71% agreed.
The report goes on "the three subsequent options for receiving advertising messages showed a significant swing from the initial unenthusiastic response. Of the two benefits we questioned them on, top up credit proved to be the most popular, particularly with pay-as-you-go customers, with almost nine out of ten willing to receive ads in exchange for phone credit. "
Dr Liz Nelson, Q Research’s Executive Chairman, says: “This survey questioned respondents on a number of mobile advertising related topics, including preferred frequency for receiving ad messages, location-based advertising and benefits for receiving them. The responses show us that 11-20 year olds have strong feelings about the way advertisers should communicate with them via mobile phone, and that these are impacted by the respondent’s gender, age, mobile phone network and ethnicity. And as one of the UK’s leading high street banks announces this week it is using location-based advertising to its customers’ mobiles, this research is very timely for advertisers.”
The results showed that young people would prefer picture advertising messages on their mobile phones, with both video and text ads less popular. The main reason for the unpopularity of video ads was concern about the price of receiving these files. Only boys under 16 chose video ads, with almost three-quarters saying they would like to receive them.
Julian Smith, Insight & Research Director at media agency MEC Interaction EMEA, commented, “This research is very welcome as it provides useful insight into the elusive youth audience. These users have an intimate relationship with the mobile phone, so push advertising messages need to be tightly targeted - more so than with any other channel - and it’s vital to stick to the rules of right person, right place, right time, right offer.”
The report goes on "the three subsequent options for receiving advertising messages showed a significant swing from the initial unenthusiastic response. Of the two benefits we questioned them on, top up credit proved to be the most popular, particularly with pay-as-you-go customers, with almost nine out of ten willing to receive ads in exchange for phone credit. "
Dr Liz Nelson, Q Research’s Executive Chairman, says: “This survey questioned respondents on a number of mobile advertising related topics, including preferred frequency for receiving ad messages, location-based advertising and benefits for receiving them. The responses show us that 11-20 year olds have strong feelings about the way advertisers should communicate with them via mobile phone, and that these are impacted by the respondent’s gender, age, mobile phone network and ethnicity. And as one of the UK’s leading high street banks announces this week it is using location-based advertising to its customers’ mobiles, this research is very timely for advertisers.”
The results showed that young people would prefer picture advertising messages on their mobile phones, with both video and text ads less popular. The main reason for the unpopularity of video ads was concern about the price of receiving these files. Only boys under 16 chose video ads, with almost three-quarters saying they would like to receive them.
Julian Smith, Insight & Research Director at media agency MEC Interaction EMEA, commented, “This research is very welcome as it provides useful insight into the elusive youth audience. These users have an intimate relationship with the mobile phone, so push advertising messages need to be tightly targeted - more so than with any other channel - and it’s vital to stick to the rules of right person, right place, right time, right offer.”