Mobile Isn’t About Mobility, Per Se: They Are Proximal Phones, Not Mobile Phones
Simon Bond mentioned a BBDO study on mobile yesterday at Pivot, and after I tweeted one datum from it my intrepid pal Paul Higgins tracked it down:
Joint Study From AOL And BBDO Turns Traditional View of Mobile Space on its Head - WSJ.com
- Mobile isn’t always on the go. In fact, well over half of all mobile interactions measured in the research occur in the home, challenging conventional wisdom.
- These mobile interactions can be segmented into seven distinct “mobile motivations” that encompass most mobile use. These include:
- Accomplish - managing activities and lifestyle to gain a sense of accomplishment
- Socialize - active interaction with other people
- Prepare - active planning in order to be prepared for upcoming activities
- Me Time - seeking relaxation and entertainment in order to indulge oneself or pass the time
- Discover - seeking news and information
- Shop - focusing on finding a product or service
- Express Myself -participating in passions and interests
- Me Time is by far the biggest “Mobile Motivation.” Me Time accounts for almost half (46%) of all smartphone app and website motivation, averaging 864 minutes per month per user, per Arbitron Mobile. Seventy percent of these moments are lean-back experiences.
- Mobile advertising performs poorly in Me Time on key ad effectiveness metrics. This is because the vast majority of messages are not relevant to the use at that time, are easy to ignore, or get in the way.
The overarching learning here is that ‘mobile’ phones aren’t primarily about mobility, at least in the meaning of wandering the face of the earth. They proximal phones: the ones closest to us. And I mean closest in all its senses. They are out personal, constant, and close-to-hand companions.
And, by extension, a great deal of the discourse about mobility phones is simply not as relevant as generally considered. BBDO suggests it’s more important to think about the motivations behind phone uses, and the kind of user time that is involved. Simon Bond, BBDO’s chief marketing officer, was quoted in the study:
In the end, it’s all about helping agencies and creatives create the most compelling content. And based on our findings, that compelling content should be me-based, home-based, entertainment-based, not solely geo-location based.
- Joint Study From AOL And BBDO Turns Traditional View of Mobile Space on its Head (virtual-strategy.com)
- Why Mobile’s Often Not About Mobility (digiday.com)
- Mobile net mostly means ‘around the house’, says new research (zdnet.com)
