Brightkite and GfK Technology released their latest Mobile Advertising Report (MAR).
- 38% of US mobile phone owners recall seeing advertising on their
cell phones in the first quarter of 2009, although for Smartphone (such
as iPhone) users, 59% recalled seeing mobile advertising. - For
Smartphone users, the number one format is mobile web advertising,
while for regular phone users, it is SMS. - 23% of Smartphone
users recall seeing SMS advertising, but 20% saw ads in mobile social
networks and 15% saw ads in mobile TV/video.
In just three months, the
number of Smartphone users seeing ads inside a location-based network
has almost tripled to 15%. At current growth rates, they expectt to
see some of these formats surpass mobile web and/or SMS in 2009.
n addition to being more aware of mobile advertising, phone users are
quickly adopting a much broader set of mobile services:
-
14% now use one or more location based services (peaking at 38% of
iPhone users). - 10% use a mobile social network (33% of iPhone users).
-
The fastest growing application for iPhone users is games, which
experiences a 21% growth quarter over quarter; 50% of iPhone owners
are now playing games on their phone.
"Over the last few years, we've tracked the growth of mobile
advertising, and this has been fueled by text messaging and mobile
Internet formats. Now we are seeing consumers adopting a much broader
set of mobile applications and services and this is exposing them to
new ad formats," explained Jonathon Linner, Brightkite's CEO. "It's
fascinating to see that iPhone users are almost as likely to see ads in
a mobile social network as they are in a text message. This was
unthinkable 12 months ago."
"If the iPhone is an indicator of future behavior across other
handsets, then we would conclude that the former 'standards' of mobile
advertising - WAP and SMS - are going to be caught up to and perhaps
surpassed by ads inside of other applications and services," says Colin
Strong, head of Mobile Communications Research at GfK Technology.
The Brightkite-GfK Technology Mobile Advertising Report is a tool
used to help marketers and their agencies understand the fast-changing
mobile advertising medium. The report is produced quarterly and is
distributed free to marketers. The Q1 2009 report is based on a survey
of 1,000 representative American adults interviewed by telephone.