When social advertising first came around not too long ago, there were a lot of complaints from the users of social networks about their personal online space being bombarded with advertising that they never once opted into. That wave of complaints has of course been reduced enormously over the past few years, as social advertising has sunk in with consumers and they have gotten a bit used to it. It seems to be a trend with consumers or internet users to feel astonished and appalled by advertising in the newest digital formats, and then over time to get passed their anger and live with ads. This trend is evident in the way that people feel about mobile advertisements these days.
According to some findings from MillwardBrown, a global research company that specializes in advertising and marketing communications, mobile is not as loved by the world’s digital consumers as the marketing numbers make it seem. The results of the company’s AdReaction 2012 report were put more simply by a website called Marketing Charts. In a chart that they put together, they show the likeability of certain ad types in percentages.
The percentages come from a survey of global smartphone and tablet owners and users. According to the survey, 51% of people said that they like television ads the most of all ad types. Opt-in emails come in a bit lower on the list with 45%. Social media advertising has clearly grown on people, as 42% of people said that they enjoyed the social ads they see on the many networks that they visit. The real important fact from this chart though is that mobile comes in third from the bottom. Just above non-opt in emails and advertising on online music players is mobile advertising, with only a 23% likeability among respondents. That number is significantly lower than was expected upon first glancing at the chart.
Marketing Charts states an even more important fact though, ridding of any doubts that the survey’s numbers may cause.
This hardly means that mobile ads are unimportant; they can drive traffic to an optimized website for continued engagement, or invite the viewer to take some other action. A third of those who have seen mobile ads report having visited a brand website, while 31% have searched for the brand. Roughly 1 in 5 have clicked on or otherwise interacted with an ad, and a similar proportion have looked for a brand in a store in response.
Mobile ads are seeing results, even though mobile users do not seem to enjoy them very much. Sure, the survey was taken of a small amount of the total mobile using population, but it certainly should do an alright job of displaying universal results. So, taking into consideration that people do not like mobile ads but are still clicking them, does it really matter that they don’t like them? The reasonable desired results are being seen, and eventually people are likely to adapt to the ads flooding their phones, so will the dislike of mobile ads affect anything presently? Trends constantly change, so only the future will tell if attitudes toward mobile ads follow suit with past new advertising platform attitudes among consumers.
