The Bottom Line: As the economy begins to recover, so too will advertising. But that doesn’t mean that things will go back to the same state they were in a year or two ago. The recession and subsequent drop off in ad spending may prove to be an inflection point where marketers shift their spending away from old-media outlets like newspapers, in favor of newer channels like mobile.

***

MOBILE USABILITY IS AN OXYMORON, according to a study of mobile web sites from well-known usability consultants Nielsen Norman Group. The company says that the results remind them of their first study of desktop PC sites in 1994, and that user had much lower success rates at completing tasks than on desktop sites.

The group tested 36 web sites, asking users to attempt particular tasks on each one, such as trying to find information about wine on a wine site, or flight information on an airline’s mobile site. They also tested “web-wide tasks” where users could utilize any site they wanted. The average success rate on mobile was 59 percent, compared to 80 percent on PCs, while they also found that users of mobile-specific sites were successful 64 percent of the time, compared to 53 percent when trying to use a full desktop site on a mobile device. Source

The Bottom Line: The results of this study shouldn’t be particularly surprising to anybody who’s spent much time on the mobile web, but it’s also easy to quibble with the methodology and setup of the tests here, in particular how it ignores the use of search on mobile devices. Instead of getting bogged down in the details, save the $200 on the report and take this away: while the mobile web may be improving, it’s still far from perfect, even with ever more powerful browsers. Every web publisher needs to think about mobile users, and consider how best to serve them.

***

MORE THAN HALF OF IPHONE/IPOD TOUCH USERS ARE IN NORTH AMERICA, according to Admob’s latest monthly metrics report. 58 percent of Apple mobile device users are in North America, the company says, with 26 percent in Western Europe, 7 percent in Asia and 9 percent in the rest of the world. Admob also says that over the past six months, the ratio of iPhones to iPod touches across its network has remained constant at about 2:1, suggesting the devices are selling in a similar ratio. Admob also says that requests from Android devices are growing by 25 percent monthly, giving it a greater growth rate than Windows Mobile devices for the first time. Source

The Bottom Line: That the majority of Apple’s mobile devices are in North America is a no-brainer, but perhaps the fact that that Europe holds half as many might be a little surprising, given the patchwork distribution of the iPhone there.

***

FIFTY-SIX PERCENT OF AMERICANS HAVE ACCESSED THE INTERNET FROM A MOBILE DEVICE, say new stats from the Pew Internet and American Life Project – but two-thirds of those have been on a laptop. Still, the group says that 32 percent of Americans have used a mobile phone to send emails or look at the web, up from 24 percent in December 2007. Nearly a fifth of Americans access the mobile internet every day, up from a tenth in 2007. Source

The Bottom Line: There seems to be a wide range of numbers cited when it comes to mobile internet usage in the US, spanning different services and devices. However, all the reports agree on one thing: numbers of users are growing.

***

Among the overall findings:

• Devices don’t’ matter (much): Users with standard feature phones will use the Web as much or even more than a smartphone user if the mobile Internet experience is good
• There is a ‘long tail’ in the mobile Internet: The top website typically accounts for 5 percent of total mobile page views. The number two site accounts for less than 1 percent of traffic. And the top 500 sites account for only 25-30 percent of all page views
• Sessions vary: 40 percent of mobile internet sessions are under five minutes and 40 percent are over 15 minutes

The report further groups mobile users into ‘tribes’ based on their distinctive user profiles. These are:

• The Business Pro – Dependent on their mobile to be more productive and to handle all their communications
• The Mobile Millennial – Early adopters and young adults with disposable income
• The Connected Kid – Children and teenagers who have grown up with technology from a young age
• The Multitasking Parent – Use their mobile phone to stay in touch and manage family schedules
• The Frugal Fanatic – Cost conscious of spending, usually opting for a free handset

Based on these observations and segmentation the report concludes:

• Multitasking Parents and Mobile Millennials are the most active user populations, generating nearly 2/3 of mobile browsing sessions between them
• Business Pros even with their highly capable devices, generate less mobile browsing sessions than expected. They also use news, sports and information sites twice as much as nearly all other groups and are lowest for social networks
• Mobile Millennial and Connected Kids are by far the heaviest users of social networks
• Frugal Fanatics utilise handset customisation services more than twice as much as any other group
• Connected Kids have far more page views relative to sessions than any other group, indicating they tend to surf more for entertainment purposes
• Source

The bottom line: The Mobile Internet, and indeed many mobile services, would fail to survive and thrive without technical companies such as Novarra, largely unknown to the masses, but which provide critical back-end solutions. Peggy adds: Kudos to Novarra for an excellent report! Not a lot of rocket science here, but an important confirmation of the groups of people on the mobile Web and an overview of what they do. Read between the lines, and you’ll see there is a great deal of untapped value in developing (and branding) life-enabling/life-simplifying services for the Multitasking Parents and Mobile Millennials, who are the most active user populations and – potentially – most responsive to companies that make their lives easier. (I highly recommend you check out my fireside chat with Ogilvy’s Rory Sutherland, packed with some surprising business model suggestions, supported by the findings above.)

***

LOCAL MOBILE CONTENT ATTRACTS SIGNIFICANT AUDIENCE. Local content views are up 51 percent over the past year, according to comScore figures. Research also reveals that application downloads are leading the growth.  It observes an 83 percent increase in the number of subscribers to local content via applications since March 2008, with text messaging services also outpacing average growth.  The study shows a 72 per cent increase in SMS subscriptions in the 12 months to March 2009.

Meanwhile, browser based access continues to grow at a rate of 34 percent year on year over the same period and, despite the slower growth rate, remains the dominant method for retrieving local content.  It accounted for 63.7 percent of all downloads in March 2009. Earlier research by comScore found younger mobile users tend to retrieve more entertainment content, while older users across Europe usually prefer financial information. Source

The bottom line: These generally encouraging comScore statistics confirm our hunch that applications downloads and mobile Internet usage are on the rise. However, the surge in local mobile content may not reflect a universal trend. It’s likely that the popularity of local content is a product of context. In other words, local content thrives in a handful of large, dense, urban regions where high-speed network coverage and captive audiences are the norm. Peggy adds: These stats also question our assumption that the global giants we know rule the roost. Take Skyrock in France, which is bigger that Facebook can ever hope to be. The popularity and reach of local content – particularly on personal devices such as our mobile phones – is sure to climb.

***

MOBILE ADVERTISING FOR MOVIES AND ALCOHOL SET BENCHMARK for industry, according to a study by Amethon Mobile Internet Insight.  The study also states that despite high CTRs, brands should focus on the quality of engagement.

Analysis of traffic to more than 100 mobile advertising sites found that consumers view just over 3 pages per visit for best-in-class campaigns, while the average across all campaigns analyzed was only 1.53 pages. Only 33 percent of consumers venture beyond the first page of mobile campaign sites, which the research says suggests mobile advertising campaigns need more compelling content within the microsite to engage consumers more effectively.

The report found that movie related campaign sites achieve the highest engagement levels, visitors viewing an average of 1.65 pages per visit, a figure that also accounted for a 21 percent share of overall audience. Alcohol campaigns achieved a similar share of audience but suffered from poor engagement, with users often not navigating beyond the age verification page.

Portal and directory service campaigns were the most common (22 percent of all campaigns), but had a relatively low audience share and below-average engagement.  Meanwhile, content downloads such as branded wallpapers or videos in the microsite did not significantly improve engagement. Source

The bottom line: This detailed study of mobile advertising offers insightful statistics to support what many have been saying all along: Advertising must be relevant and engaging.  While it probably comes as no surprise that interest in advertising around films takes the top shot, a lot of work has to be done in the way of creative thought to the landing page and what people do after they click through. This is particularly pertinent in view of the drop off in popularity of wallpapers and video.  The other issue of poor engagement in popular alcohol campaigns, possibly due to age verification process is disappointing but not surprising or uncommon.  I explore age verification issues in more detail in a recent post here.

***

40 PERCENT OF USERS ACCESS INTERNET MORE OFTEN ON iPHONE / iPOD TOUCH THAN ON PC, according to a new demographic study from comScore and Admob.  The research also reveals that 69 percent of iPod Touch users are between 13-24 years of age, while the same age segment represents just 26 percent of iPhone users. In total, 74 percent of iPhone users are over the age of 25, compared to 31 percent of iPod touch users. Over 70 percent of users on both the iPhone and iPod touch are male.

Over the next six months, iPhone users are said to be planning to buy clothing (57 percent), entertainment (47 percent), and travel (45 percent), while iPod touch users plan to purchase clothing (61 percent), entertainment (53 percent), and mobile devices (36 percent).

By way of background, the methodology used in this primary research into the demographics and behavioral characteristics of iPhone and iPod touch users in the first half of 2009 is as follows: Participants were visitors to domains within the AdMob iPhone network who were shown survey invitation banners rather than banner ads. Those who clicked through the survey banner were presented with the mobile survey. The total sample size of iPod touch participants is 3,848, while the total number of

participants in the iPhone sample is 3,454. All results were tested for statistically significant differences at the 95 percent confidence level.  Source

The bottom line: As well as the headline that 40 percent of users access the Internet via their mobile device more often than their computer, the other key finding is the age differentiation.  You could surmise from this that teenagers can convince their parents to buy them an iPod touch, but not an iPhone and all its recurring bills. Other findings such as average salary were largely in-line with the age difference.  The ongoing generation of such data is key in the production of applications and the execution of mobile advertising strategies.

***

LG EXPECTS NINE PERCENT RISE in mobile sales.  The Korean handset manufacturer has said it will sell 110 million devices this year, despite a flat global market. The company has also said this figure will rise to more than 200 million by 2012. Source

The bottom line: Handset manufacturers marginalized, at least in publicity terms, by the “bigger” names now have an uphill task to continue producing new quality devices which will gain mass market penetration and to effectively promote their core differentiators.  These bullish projections are encouraging signs of a still highly competitive marketplace.