Study: Why Mobile Audiences Are Completely Different From Desktop Ones

Advertisers who exclude mobile video from their campaigns are missing a huge and unique audience opportunity according to a new study by Nielsen and Tremor Video.

Just as importantly the qualities of this distinct audience set differ considerably from those on the desktop.

Called “The Mobile Video Report 2016”, the study was produced in collaboration with Yahoo7, MCN, Network Ten and News Corporation.

The size of the audience and the volume of impressions measured should have increased the likelihood of a user being exposed across both mobile and desktop, however surprisingly the results where very different.

The analysis revealed that just one per cent of the total audience measured was exposed on both a desktop and a mobile device.

“Essentially an entirely new audience was discovered through the use of mobile video.”

The study’s insights are based on an analysis of the behavior of an audience of over 200,000 unique viewers generating close to 1.2 million impressions.

It revealed that an extraordinary 73 per cent of the viewers who were exposed to the inventory pool on mobile devices did not watch video on desktop computers.

The big switch

Eyeballs are shifting to mobile and as video inventory becomes more available opportunities are opening up for brands. The report’s authors note, “Viewers have embraced the freedom of TV everywhere. This is reflected in the 59 per cent year on year growth in online video streams in Australia measured by Nielsen.”

They identify several factors driving this growth. These include improved connectivity, a proliferation of internet connected devices and a significant investment by many of leading Australian media companies in screen-agnostic content delivery.

“The brightest stars of them all have been smartphones and tablets (mobile devices). These accounted for 32 hours and 22 hours of time per person respectively in April 2016 according to Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings (Monthly),” say the report’s authors.

This trend has led to swelling online video advertising expenditure in recent years. IAB Australia for instance suggests that the local investment in video advertising in 2016 will cap $417 million and will grow to $700 million by 2018.

Despite this, here has been a lag in the generally accepted principle that advertising dollars follow the eyeballs to mobile and tablet video monetisation.

Different strokes

Not only are mobile viewers a new and discrete opportunity but they are also a far more balanced group than the desktop audience. The analysis suggests that mobile may provide advertisers with a more diverse selection of viewers. Desktop inventory meanwhile provided a greater level of reach of mature male audiences.

Viewers exposed to the campaign on both a desktop and mobile device skewed more towards people 25-39 and 55-64 indicating that these audiences were more likely to be exposed to an advertisement across devices.

“Exposing a user to a campaign across devices can be a valuable aspect of building brand awareness by consistently being top-of-mind with the target audience. “

The bottom line: The researchers say that adding a mobile audience delivered a huge incremental reach.

Methodology

Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings was used to measure a variety of inventory across the Tremor Video exchange and four key Australian publishers in an attempt to understand the incremental reach of mobile video in addition to desktop, and to understand the audience composition across each of these platforms.

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