27% of UK media agency employees have “no idea” how to comply with mobile privacy, while 22% have “no idea” about brand safety on mobile, according to research released today by the IAB and BVDW.
However, the study, carried out in partnership with YouGov across 154 media agency employees in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, revealed a 23% year on year increase of general mobile advertising knowledge.
The research also pointed towards a shift in who is driving the mobile movement within media agencies, with strategists emerging as key drivers of growth. In the UK, the number of respondents claiming that strategists are driving the move has risen from 41% in 2013 to 53% in 2014.
Encouragingly, 49% of those surveyed said that mobile is now a regular part of client proposals, up from 38% in 2013.
However, mobile programmatic, brand safety and mobile privacy are topics of concern for media agencies – all of which came out on top as areas in which they felt they had the lowest level of understanding.
42% claimed that mobile is unlocking new budgets, however 71% said that their mobile budget is coming from other media, such as Internet, TV, print and radio.
Forward-facing, integration is expected to be key in 2015 with 78% of UK media agency employees claiming that mobile will be integrated into their wider agencies by the end of the year.
Almost 90% of UK media agency employees felt that not being able to track cross-screen campaigns was a huge barrier to mobile growth, while 69% said that location-based advertising was the most exciting opportunity.
“These studies are a great benchmarking tool for us and the wider industry to see where general mobile uptake is, as well as understand crucial barriers for both clients and agencies,” said Mike Reynolds, senior mobile executive at the IAB.
“It is great to see that the level of mobile understanding has increased steadily over the past six years, and with this, confidence in the channel has also increased.”
