A bi-annual report from Nielsen Mobile found that 58 million, that is about 23%, of all U.S. mobile phones users have viewed mobile advertising in the last 1 month. Of these, 28 million subscribers say they responded to the ad in one way or another.
The findings are based on a study of over 22,000 mobile users, carried out in the last quarter of 2007. The results of the report indicate that:
- The number of consumers who remembered seeing mobile ads has increased 38% between the 2nd and 4th quarters of 2007.
- Teenagers are far more likely to recall mobile ads. Asians and African Americans are more likely to recall these ads.
- SMS text messaging is the most popular form of ad response, and was used by 26% of the users, while click-to-call was used by 9% of people.
- 32% of those studied sid they were willing to accept mobile advertising if it could lower their mobile bills, 13% would accept mobile advertising if it improved the media content available amd 14% were open to mobile advertising if it would be relevant to them.
- 23% of users expect that mobile advertising will increase in the near future.
While advertisers continue to look for ways to connect with users through their mobile devices, the quest for acceptable mobile advertising is not complete. Only 10% of the users surveyed found mobile advertising acceptable.
As of now there is no consistent yardstick to measure the performance of mobile ads and this leads to advertisers feeling as if they were fumbling in the dark. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! have launched a number of services for mobile and programs to enable marketers to place ads on mobiles. This can only mean that the mobile ad market is set to take off in a very big way and a lot of money is at stake here.
Read the full press release from Nielsen
