Weekend Reading - August 8
Friday, August 8th, 2008
Mobile users will watch ads for “free” content. According to 4th Screen Advertising’s Adlndex for Mobile research, conducted by Dynamic Logic, 88 percent of mobile users in the UK are willing to receive pre-roll mobile ads in return for free video content. Mobile pre-roll ads, which ran on O2 Active, are “attention grabbing” and increase brand recognition and favorable opinions of advertisers, the study found.
More surprisingly, 59 percent of participants said the mobile ads made them more interested in the advertised brand, and 62 percent said the ads gave a good impression of the brands being advertised.
Will Web 2.0 leave email in the dust? Text messaging, blogging and social networking have reached critical mass. More than half of adults in the U.S. surveyed said they now rely on at least one of these so-called Web 2.0 platforms to communicate with friends, family, or colleagues on a regular basis, says MediaPost reporting on an ongoing tracking study from Interpublic’s Universal McCann unit.
The study also found that the 18-34 crowd primarily uses social media as its dominant form of personal communication media, with 85% of this influential demographic group relying on one or more Web 2.0 platforms to stay in touch with others.
So, where does that leave email? Of the three conferences we have attended in the last six months, at least one presenter claims that “email will soon be extinct.”
On the other hand…
Search may overtake email as the ‘ubiquitous online experience.’ Though email is still the most common daily online activity, the percentage of consumers who use search daily has grown considerably over the past six years, according to a report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and reported in iMedia Connection.
Based on Pew’s survey, email is the only more popular online activity, with 60 percent of users checking their inboxes on a daily basis. Search has quickly risen to second place, with the percentage of daily searchers growing 69 percent since 2002.
Coca-Cola goes for interactive media marketing gold at the Summer Olympics. Coca-Cola is partnering with Pioco, China’s biggest Bluetooth Media company, and reaching out to Olympic attendees via thousands of hotspots around Beijing. Their campaign includes broadcasting Coca-Cola Bluetooth video commercials to Bluetooth-enabled phones and broadcasting messages to users entering hotspots asking them for permission to download content from Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola’s relationship with Pioco marks the first time in Olympic history that a brand has used Bluetooth media for its marketing campaign.
Year of the Mobile. New research from The Nielsen Company shows that a substantial number of mobile users across the globe will be following the Olympics on their cell phones this summer, making the Games a watershed event for media fragmentation tied to mobile.
According to Nielsen Mobile, a service of The Nielsen Company, nearly 45% of US and 31% of UK mobile video users will be part of the mobile audience for the 2008 Olympic Games.
The data reveals that track and field and gymnastics both rank among the most popular Olympic events mobile video users want to watch on their phones.
The research also suggests that the mobile Internet will play a critical role, as 23% of US and 17% of UK mobile internet users will be tracking the Games through their phone browsers, with event results and medal counts being the most desired pieces of information.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that our client Viigo has partnered with The Globe and Mail to bring mobile updates, scores, medal counts, and exclusive content from the Globe and Mail sports team, to smartphones worldwide.
