Consumers prefer smaller instantaneous prizes in mobile phone promotions on mobile phones than they do the chance to win bigger prizes, according to new research by mobile marketing firm AirG.
In the online study conducted in April, AirG recorded the results of 15,500 people in 22 minutes. When asked what types of freebies they’d most want in exchange for watching ads on a phone, 55 percent said they’d like ringtones; 14 percent said wallpaper; 12 percent said mobile video; and 19 percent said the chance to win a car.
“The chance to win something small immediately beats the chance to win something bigger in the future,” said Frederick Ghahramani, co-founder of AirG, Vancouver, Canada.
Twenty-nine percent of survey respondents have clicked on an ad on a mobile phone and 21 percent have participated in a contest or promo on a phone. But this potential has yet to be tapped completely as 48 percent of respondents said that they would accept ads on their phone in exchange for a free service or chance to win a prize.
But consumer attention depends on the person. Forty-four percent of respondents said that they would watch fewer than five ads on their phone every day to get a free phone, while 20 percent said they’d watch five to 10 ads and 36 percent said they’d watch more than 10.
Despite positive responses about participating in promotions, 29 percent said that concern over receiving ads has caused them to stop using their phone.
Still, 30 percent of respondents said that seeing ads on their phone has led to a purchase.
According to Mr. Ghahramani, to get consumers engaged in mobile marketing promotions it is important to understand the medium.
“Moving your online strategy to mobile is not going to work,” he said. “Mobile is a different medium that is more intimate and needs to be treated that way in the promotions done through this channel. Consumers spend 59 minutes a day on their phones but this is broken up into about five-minute increments so campaigns should be short and give an instant response to get a good response rate.”
