Smartphones are 'personal', not 'mobile' devices

Smartphones are 'personal', not 'mobile' devices
B&T Magazine
By B&T Magazine



When it comes to marketing “conventional wisdom is often times wrong”, as is the case when it comes to mobile advertising according to AOL’s Christian Kugel.

When discussions around mobile advertising take place the terms most often bandied about are geo-fencing, showrooming, mobile couponing and geo-location.

While Kugel made it clear he was not discounting the value of these practices, he did say they ignore the “human truths” around how people actually use their smartphones.

“Mobile is often times not truly mobile,” Kugel, AOL’s vice president of consumer analytics and research, said at ADMA’s Data Day in Melbourne.

 “Sixty-eight per cent of all the minutes that people spend with their smartphones happen at home.”

The insight comes from an AOL and BBDO study ‘Seven Shades of Mobile’ which B&T revealed exclusively in July last year.

Tablets, even more than smartphones, are home devices according to Kugel who said tablet usage is highest during prime-time TV hours.

“In fact, only about 20% of tablets in the US have a data plan. People just don’t carry their tablets around.”

“I actually think as an industry we should stop calling these things mobile devices because they are clearly not.

“They are more like personal devices.”

Kugel said the report proves that “conventional wisdom is often times wrong” and marketers should be careful of “putting too much stock into what the industry is saying".

The study did find that mothers of young kids are the heaviest users of mobile data, roughly 40% more than the average.

“What we calculated is that mums of young kids spend 8% of their waking hours on their phones and 5% of their life on their phone.”




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