Sunday, October 25, 2015
Monday, October 5, 2015
Global, mobile markets call for more diverse advertising: Indian consumers favor mobile ads over Americans, study finds
The mobile market is booming in both the United States and India, two of the world’s three biggest smartphone vendors. Yet, smartphone users in India have more favorable attitudes toward mobile advertisements than their American counterparts, according to a study by Southern Methodist University and Korea University researchers.
A study of smartphone users in America and India compared attitudes toward mobile ads, uses of a mobile device and cultural differences in phone activities
There is little to no advertising information available about the average smartphone user in India.
Advertisers may recognize India’s flourishing mobile market as an opportunity to attract new consumers, but will not be able to fully gain their attention without knowing how and why Indian consumers use their phones.
Southern Methodist University’s Sidharth Muralidharan and Carrie La Ferle and Korea University’s Yongjun Song worked with a marketing research firm and recruited 158 Indian adults from major metropolitan areas. Factors like age, gender and household income were considered.
These individuals then responded to a series of statements ranging from “I like to look at mobile advertising” to “I feel that receiving mobile advertisements is enjoyable” based on a 5-point scale; options were strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree or strongly disagree.
Researchers then recruited 114 American adults and administered the same survey.
The researchers proposed there are four main factors that affect attitudes toward mobile ads:
Advertisers may recognize India’s flourishing mobile market as an opportunity to attract new consumers, but will not be able to fully gain their attention without knowing how and why Indian consumers use their phones.
Southern Methodist University’s Sidharth Muralidharan and Carrie La Ferle and Korea University’s Yongjun Song worked with a marketing research firm and recruited 158 Indian adults from major metropolitan areas. Factors like age, gender and household income were considered.
These individuals then responded to a series of statements ranging from “I like to look at mobile advertising” to “I feel that receiving mobile advertisements is enjoyable” based on a 5-point scale; options were strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree or strongly disagree.
Researchers then recruited 114 American adults and administered the same survey.
The researchers proposed there are four main factors that affect attitudes toward mobile ads:
- entertainment
- informativeness
- credibility
- irritation
The study found that Indian smartphone users find mobile ads to be more entertaining, informative and credible than Americans. Researchers did not find any significant differences for irritation.
India is an emerging mobile market, home to 900 million mobile phone users
India is quickly surpassing the U.S. as the second biggest country in smartphone sales globally, according to the study.
There is clearly power behind numbers: mobile devices in India account for 72 percent of all web traffic and Indian companies spent over $49.9 million on mobile ads in 2013, according to the Mobile Marketing Association and Business Week.
There is clearly power behind numbers: mobile devices in India account for 72 percent of all web traffic and Indian companies spent over $49.9 million on mobile ads in 2013, according to the Mobile Marketing Association and Business Week.
Gregg Apirian, the managing director at ad agency Vignette and CEO of consulting firm DVELOP, is not surprised by the study's findings.
“For many years, places like India and Asia, specifically Korea, have been heavily well ahead of us in terms of the functionality, technology and use of mobile. They had bigger screens before we did...they do things we can’t even do here yet,” Apirian said.
India is a collectivist culture, meaning its society emphasizes the importance of the group over the individual; this groupthink plays a role in increasing social media use and likely affecting how people view ads, the study argues.
Mobile ads attract Indian smartphone users, while American smartphone users are less than impressed. What other types of demographics have conflicting views?
This study looked at differences between adults in India and the U.S., but leaves room for curiosity about other demographic differences.
The male students responded to mobile ads with more irritation.
Senior accounting and management double major Drew Friedman is one of the few men who answered with a favorable attitude.
"Humor in general definitely helps [an ad]," Friedman said. "Sometimes I think playing off of pop culture is funny to people."
Natasha Paulmeno, vice president of UMD's Public Relations Society of America chapter and senior communications and Spanish double major, feels like mobile ads are generally trustworthy.
"I trust ads about sales or special offers on social media. Those are messages that will usually catch my attention," Paulmeno said.
She added that Starbucks is a noteworthy company on mobile because of how it encourages users to directly interact with the brand by sharing photos of purchased drinks.
Examining different types of demographics like gender and age is all a part of demographic or target marketing, an aspect of the industry with which Apirian has helped many clients.
"Audience segmentation is a process to break down differences in audiences, targeting them with the right messaging and content so that when it’s delivered to them, it feels relevant, meaningful, contextual and very much about them,” Apirian said.
Years ago, the one-message-to-all typical method of advertising worked for some groups, but not all.
Target, a client of his, likes to cater to women because of the mom's societal role as shopper, whereas tech brands may want to cater more to men, Apirian added.
Natasha Paulmeno, vice president of UMD's Public Relations Society of America chapter and senior communications and Spanish double major, feels like mobile ads are generally trustworthy.
"I trust ads about sales or special offers on social media. Those are messages that will usually catch my attention," Paulmeno said.
She added that Starbucks is a noteworthy company on mobile because of how it encourages users to directly interact with the brand by sharing photos of purchased drinks.
Examining different types of demographics like gender and age is all a part of demographic or target marketing, an aspect of the industry with which Apirian has helped many clients.
"Audience segmentation is a process to break down differences in audiences, targeting them with the right messaging and content so that when it’s delivered to them, it feels relevant, meaningful, contextual and very much about them,” Apirian said.
Years ago, the one-message-to-all typical method of advertising worked for some groups, but not all.
Target, a client of his, likes to cater to women because of the mom's societal role as shopper, whereas tech brands may want to cater more to men, Apirian added.
Twitter released its 'Personas' feature this summer which provides advertisers with key demographic information about consumers.
From there, advertisers can easily tailor campaigns to cater to these specific groups. Some personas include baby boomers, Generation X and millennials.
From there, advertisers can easily tailor campaigns to cater to these specific groups. Some personas include baby boomers, Generation X and millennials.
Millennials are starting to heavily influence framework of mobile ads
Like nationality and gender, age is another influential demographic for advertisers. Specifically, millennials are a huge market. These 18 to 34-year-olds are constantly on their mobile phones and staying in the know.
"One big brand [that caters to millennials] is Old Spice because of their virality," said senior journalism and government and politics double major Kevin LaFrancis. "They know how to make headlines and they know how to make people talking, especially our age."
A huge force bringing millennials and mobile ads together is BuzzFeed. Senior journalism major Nicole Dei feels the site's listicle format is perfect for people her age that don't take the time to read long-form news articles.
"BuzzFeed does a great job because many people in our age group have terrible attention spans," Dei said.
Native advertising, or advertising in the form of the medium in which the ad takes place, is a huge source of revenue for sites like BuzzFeed. Its sponsored articles take the form of cool-looking editorials and attract more young readers than a traditional ad.
Mobile ads are certainly reaching millennials at a higher rate than other age groups who do not surf the Internet as often. This leaves this age group much more susceptible to advertising ploys, LaFrancis said.
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