The mobile obsession
Bryan Scott, marketing communications director at Metro,on why many brands are now ensuring that mobile is not just part of their marketing mix, but core to their purpose….
Last week the nation came to a standstill. For once it wasn’t the fault of motorway repairs or a flying Boris on a zip wire – no, it was in fact the leak of the latest iPhone 5 and iPad mini component photos online.
The consumer mobile obsession is still that – an obsession. Deloitte has estimated that at the end of last year there were approximately three million tablet owners across the UK, up from 1.2 million from 2010. With iPad continuing to shift huge volumes of units and with the expected 2012 UK release of Kindle Fire, it’s estimated that tablet sales will have hit five million or more by the end of the year.
From marketers, to product development heads, to content teams – everyone is looking at the best ways to engage, excite and beat the competition’s content offering, which sits just one swipe away. And the UK consumer’s appetite for a rich mobile-based web experience shows no sign of abating, with comScore reporting in December that almost 10% of UK web browsing came via mobile devices (a figure exceeding all countries bar Singapore).
There’s every indication that mobile marketing spend will see the same exponential growth that online advertising has witnessed over the last decade, with 90% of agencies surveyed by the IAB stating that mobile media would be the fastest growing channel over the next five years.
In March the IAB reported a 157% increase in UK mobile ad spend during 2011, with search increasing by 145% year on year and display advertising formats growing even faster, increasing by 186% YoY.
Many brands are now ensuring that mobile is not just part of their marketing mix, but core to their purpose. Over the last year or so, we’ve also seen an explosion in brands testing the latest technologies to drive a deeper, more engaged customer experience, whether that’s through simple QR code scanning, more involved augmented reality or second screening opportunities.
Metro is fortunate – when launched 13 years ago, in the days before smartphones and tablets, we were designed as the original mobile media brand, to entertain and inform commuters on their way to work. And these days, our digital mobile offering exploits the best from our print proposition, offering an urbanite audience content in a concise format, especially designed to be consumed on the move.
While print remains a core component of our business, from both a reader and advertiser perspective, we are not immune to the macro-changes that are impacting today’s consumer. Our digital mobile editions have focused on giving our customers more of what they want in the formats that they already consume, but with added features and functionality that a rich digital mobile experience can deliver.
None of this would be relevant if our urbanite audience was not at ease with the evolution of mobile technology – it is part of their day and part of their relationships. Hence our innovation and evolution across mobile has continued to result in growing audience figures, while simultaneously offering advertisers new ways of connecting with urbanites.
From our tablet edition to our Facebook app, and our latest iOS iPhone app (with Android and HTML5 soon to follow), our advertising partners now have new channels to test, learn and drive success from.
And it’s important that both parties – media owners and advertisers – openly share their experiences as we go along. Some of the most impressive mobile campaigns that I’ve seen at Metro have been as a result of great collaboration with brands such as Red Bull and Converse.
Digital mobile advancements have opened up an array of new opportunities for brands and at Metro, they have allowed us speak to our consumers more frequently throughout their day (for example we launched a PM tablet edition for the duration of the Olympic Games) and adapt to new lifestyle and working habits, be it reaching home workers or people that ride their bikes to work.
As mobile technology continues to develop, it will offer advertisers even more ways of reaching consumers more frequently, and we believe the winners will be the brands that are interacting and engaging with them on the move.