Mobile + Me

The Remodelled Brand Opportunity

Whats Inside?
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10

REMODELLING
ME TIME

HOW ME TIME
IS EVOLVING

A CONSUMER
RESEARCH TOOL

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THE BRAND
OPPORTUNITY

CONCLUSION

RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY

Introduction from Quantcast

The mobile device

has become our
communications hub,
our diary, our
entertainment portal,
our primary source of
media consumption, our
wallet and our gateway
to real-time information
tailored to our needs.
The revolution is now.
Nihal Mehta
Founding General Partner,
ENIAC Ventures

Everywhere you look, people are using

mobile devices. On public transport were
embracing our mobile devices to read,
catch up on work, watch videos or keep in
touch with friends. In the street were using
maps to find our way to our destination,
looking up places to eat, drink and buy
food or get a cab. At home we use them
to chat to friends, check recipes, order the
groceries, figure out the name of that actor
on our favourite TV show, read a book and
catch up with the news.
And it shows no sign of abating.
Smartphones overtook laptops as the
primary device for British internet access in
August last year, according to Ofcom, the
UK communications regulator. And, said
Ofcom, two-thirds of people now own a
smartphone, which they use for nearly two
hours a day to get online.1
Some of that growth is clearly driven by
ever-improving mobile data infrastructure.
Ofcom noted last year that people with 4G
are much bigger users of mobile shopping,

Ofcom, August 2015

Benedict Evans, 16 Mobile Theses, December 18 2015

banking and communications apps than

those without, with 55% of 4G users using
their devices to shop compared to 35% of
those with 3G-enabled smartphones.
As mobiles have become a much more
vital part of our lives, some analysts are
even questioning the need for traditional
PCs. The analyst Benedict Evans remarked
at the end of last year: Will you always
need a mouse and keyboard and Excel or
PowerPoint for real work? Probably not
those will linger on for a long time but all
the software will change. It will move to the
cloud and on to mobile devices and be
reshaped by them.2
In short, improvements in infrastructure
mean that our mobile devices have not
only become important parts of our lives,
theyve become our friends. For many
people, theyre not just devices, they are an
important part of our me time, the time
we spend doing things we enjoy away from
work or family commitments.

At Quantcast, in the markets we operate in,

we see connected users, across four billion
devices, 50% of which are mobile. When we
analysed this data we found some interesting
insights relevant to those customers building
a mobile strategy. It is these insights and
our natural curiosity which prompted us
to go directly to consumers in the UK, France
and Germany to find out more about their
mobile phone habits and perception of mobile
advertising. We wanted to share the findings
with everyone else.

Matt White
UK Managing Director, Quantcast

REMODELLING ME TIME

Your mobile device

has quickly become the
easiest portal into your
digital self.
Phil Nickinson, Editor of Android Central

According to research 88% of us look at our

mobile phones within an hour of waking up.3
With mobiles so ubiquitous and indispensable
in our lives, we decided to look more closely at
exactly what it is were doing with our devices
during the time we spend on them.
One key leisure activity shopping has been
transformed by the mobile device. In todays
digitally led world, you no longer have to go
out to the shops: we can do careful research at
our leisure, compare other consumers views
from the sofa and make purchases without
leaving the comfort of our own home and we
can share what were interested in with our
friends, whether thats buying a car or going to
see Adele in concert. So perhaps we shouldnt
be surprised that mobile shopping is on an
upward trajectory. Today a third of us shop on
our mobiles and on average were researching
purchases five times a day.
Deloitte Mobile Consumer 2015: The UK Cut, https://www.deloitte.
co.uk/mobileuk/assets/pdf/Deloitte-Mobile-Consumer-2015.pdf
4
John Lewis trading update, January 6 2016
3

Christmas is of course the key time for mobile

shopping: John Lewis in the UK reported in
January that online sales via smartphones and
tablets had grown 31% in the six weeks up to
the new year compared to the same period
the previous year, while Internet Retailing said
that 41% of us were using our mobile devices to
check for better prices online rather than going
out into the cold to bricks-and-mortar shops.5
As Benedict Evans remarked at the end of last
year: Mobile is the internet smartphones
are mostly used when youre sitting down
and their capabilities make them much more
sophisticated as internet platforms than
the PC.6

Even keeping fit has been revolutionised by

our mobile devices: we use them to keep
track of our workouts, set goals and share
achievements with our friends. Our mobiles
are more than just personal devices: they
are firmly rooted in and are transforming
our me time.

On average we research
purchases on mobile five
times a day

5x

/day

HOW ME TIME IS EVOLVING

Mobile means on the go

proximity, 95% agree that
it best allows them to keep
in touch on the move
IAB UK7

We know that mobile devices are playing an

increasingly important role in our lives, but what
about how we use them while were relaxing?
We live in a world where looking up something
online or browsing through the sales no longer
means you have to fire up a laptop or a desktop:
we can do that from the sofa, while were out
with friends, even while were in bed. Looking up
things has never been easier or quicker, thanks
to the growth in devices, improved software and
faster connection speeds.

Communicating
Primarily we communicate with friends and
family 84% of say we use our mobiles in our
downtime to text and message, while 61%
of us access social media. Life admin is also
something we spend a lot of time doing via our
mobiles. 20% say the time we spend paying bills
and making notes has gone up over the past
year, while nearly 25% expect to spend more
time on life admin via our devices over the next
year.

And we make sure weve got our mobiles with

us during our me time precisely so that we can
do these things when we think about it rather
than waiting until were in front of a traditional
PC. So what do we do in our mobile me time?

Entertainment and Fitness

Other me time activities include watching or
listening to music and films, playing games, and
taking photographs. And what about fitness and
exercise? 18% of us say we track fitness on our
devices, with the same proportion expecting to
spend even more time keeping an eye on their
runs, workouts, steps and other fitness-related
activities over the next 12 months.

IAB UK, Three device lives: tablets in context

These are all activities that present an

opportunity for advertisers: when we are already
doing things that are important to us, we are
more likely to respond positively to relevant and
appropriate advertising.
Shopping
We are increasingly using this me time to
shop. A third of consumers said they use their
mobile phone to shop, with 26% saying they
expect to spend even more time shopping on
their mobiles in the next 12 months. In fact on
average consumers make a purchase on their
mobile phones once a week. Consumers in the
age bracket 2534 make an average of two
purchases a week.
With these highly personal activities being
increasingly closely tied to our use of mobile
devices, this growth of me time is a fantastic
opportunity for brands to reach consumers, not
only to bring opportunities for purchasing on to
our devices, but also to help us make decisions
about what to buy.

Did you know?

25-34 year olds make on

average two purchases
on mobile a week

A CONSUMER RESEARCH TOOL

The smartphone is the sun

and everything else orbits
around it
Benedict Evans

41%
of us on average use our
mobiles for researching

A key area of growth when it comes to mobile

usage is researching consumer items and online
shopping. 41% of us on average use our mobiles
for researching and making choices about what
to spend our money on (51% if you are aged 25
to 34).

understand that there is the potential to

reach their audience on one to influence
behaviour on another was something that
piqued. So we decided to mine our own troves
of data to get a deeper understanding of what it
really means.

This is a trend that advertisers need to take

note of. We no longer spend our time online
sitting at a desk in front of a PC. As Benedict
Evans points out, mobile means ubiquity
universal access to the internet for anyone at
any time.8 That means that rather than firing
up a PC specifically to perform a task, we can
research and buy items and services when the
impulse hits us and many of us are doing
just that.

Quantcasts proprietary data on mobile

behaviours highlighted that while consumer
propensity to convert (e.g. purchase) on mobile
varies greatly by industry, they consistently
rely heavily on their mobile phones to research
purchases. For instance, we found that
consumers are three times more likely to
research travel purchases on their mobile
phones, than they are to make the purchase
itself. So when speaking directly to consumers
for this report we wanted to look in to this
more closely.

The idea that advertisers should not just

be looking to sell on a specific device, but

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Benedict Evans, Forget about the mobile internet, September 4 2015

Percent of consumers who research on their

mobile phones

33%

33%

32%

30%

Sports tickets

Automotive

Financial products

Insurance

36%

Groceries

37%

Show tickets

38%

Holidays

41%

Cosmetics

45%

Accessories

47%

Technology

Clothing

51%

A significant number of consumers are

researching purchases on their mobile phones.
So what does this mean for advertisers?
It means that mobile phones are now a
shopping catalogue. Our mobile me-time
is often focused activity directed towards
researching a purchase even if we go on
and make that purchase in another way, on
another device. For advertisers that may
have disregarded mobile previously because
conversion rates are low, it opens up a vast
opportunity for mobile to deliver relevant
brand advertising and influence the consumers
purchase journey.

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THE BRAND OPPORTUNITY

Everyone is not your

customer
Seth Godin

80%
of 16-34 year olds say they
have been influenced to
purchase by a mobile advert

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But theres more to this picture of consumers

using their mobile devices for an increasing
range of personal activities. As well as knowing
what consumers are doing with their devices
and how this is changing, there is also a need to
understand how useful or relevant they find the
adverts they are receiving and when and how
that differs.
The overriding message from the research was
this: brands need to be more mindful about
their mobile advertising strategy; if they are,
there is room to increase brand awareness and
drive direct response. 64% of us say we have
been influenced to purchase by an advert we
have seen on our mobile phones a figure that
goes up to 80% among 16 to 34 year olds.
And heres an important point for brands:
its easy to annoy someone on their devices.
Because our mobiles are so personal, we resent
something appearing that isnt useful. Currently
51% of consumers find mobile adverts more
intrusive than adverts received on their desktop
or tablet. While half admit that advertising
received on their mobile phones that isnt

relevant to them negatively impacts their overall

perception of a brand a frustration felt more
acutely by 1634 years olds (54%) than older
generations.
So how can advertisers get it right?
Consumers have higher expectations of
mobile advertising than other forms. 37%
of consumers said that they expect adverts
received on their mobile phones to be more
relevant than on other devices, while 40% say
that they wish mobile advertising was more
creative or engaging. And again its the younger
generations that have higher expectations, with
50% expecting more relevancy and creativity.
What is the impact of more relevant mobile
advertising?
A third (33%) say they would be more likely to
purchase from a brand that only showed them
adverts relevant to them an average that
jumps to 43% among 1634 year olds. More
than a third of consumers (36%) admitted they
would be more influenced by more creative
adverts again the average increases (48%)
among 1634 year olds.

What else can brands do to reach would-be

consumers?
Another important aspect is user experience:
make it easy and more of us follow through on
our purchases.
A fifth of us warn that the user experience is not
good enough to complete a purchase on our
mobile devices, while 17% say that a site or app
requires too much detail to be inputted. This
seems to reflect the broad concern about the
amount of data that are captured while we are
online. A further 15% say they wanted to see the
item in person.

59%
of consumers agree that they
would be more accepting of
mobile advertising if it was
relevant to them

What do consumers want?

From the findings we believe there is a real need
for adverts to be smarter and more relevant. Do
that, and consumers are more likely to use their
precious me-time to engage with and act on
adverts. And its not just about relevance; to
be a success, brands need to make sure their
adverts are creative or clever or appeal to the
emotions are more effective.

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CONCLUSION
What should brands do to improve their mobile
advertising effectiveness?
The answer is: know your audience.
Mobile is growing and will continue to grow.
Advertisers need to make sure the products
and services they are selling are welcome in
consumers precious me time, that they are
not intrusive, that they are relevant and that
they are creative.
Advertisers need to work with the technology to
increase relevance. That means using the right
tools music, video, images, words in the right
place at the right time, and making sure the
right people see those messages.
Knowing your technology and knowing your
user should be at the forefront of
advertisers minds.
Brands that fail to recognise these important
trends will be left behind and will lose out to
their competitors. For brands, 2016 should be
the year that they focus not only on who their
consumers are, but how they live their lives and
how their devices fit into their lives.

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Research methodology
The research was commissioned by Quantcast
and conducted by Censuswide, with 3,704
consumers in the UK, France and Germany with
a mobile phone aged 16+ between 04/12/15
06/01/16. Censuswide abide by and employ
members of the Market Research Society which
is based on the ESOMAR principles.
The research sought to understand peoples
use of their mobile device in their me time and
specifically how users browse on their mobiles,
specifically through a browser as opposed to
within an application. For the purposes of the
study me time was defined as the time spent
relaxing.
The research comprised quantitative research
across three geographies: UK, France and
Germany. Across all geographies we completed
3,704 online interviews with consumers. The
panel was representative of each country based
on age and gender. Panellists are recruited with
a double opt-in process to check and confirm
that they wish to join.

All research conducted by Censuswide

adheres to MRS Codes of Conduct (2010) in
the UK. Within these parameters there are
guidelines that ensure all research is carried
out in a professional and ethical manner.
Furthermore as members of ESOMAR and
AIMRI Censuswide abide by the ICC/ESOMAR
International Code on Market and Social
Research.
Censuswide is registered with the
Information Commissioners Office and is
fully compliant in accordance with the Data
Protection Act. The company is also certified
under Quality Assurance Scheme IS0 9001.
The details of the demographic and
geographic breakdowns within the online
sample are shown in the tables on the right:

Geography

Size of sample

Proportion of study

UK

1254

33.85%

France

1242

33.53%

Germany

1208

32.61%

Size of sample

Proportion of study

16 24

832

22.46%

25 34

671

18.11%

35 44

680

18.36%

45 54

782

21.11%

55+

738

19.92%

Size of sample

Proportion of study

Male

1815

49.00%

Female

1889

50.99%

Age

Gender

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Why Quantcast?
Truly relevant brand and performance
advertising
Our research has clearly identified the growing
importance of mobile devices to individuals,
and this is only going to increase. Computing
is increasingly mobile rather than desk-based,
and research indicates that the day is rapidly
approaching when we will spend more time
online via mobile devices than all other devices
combined.
Since 2006 Quantcast have built one of the
worlds most sophisticated data-intelligence
platforms that unlocks proprietary data
generated by more than 100m global digital
destinations which give us visibility into four
billion devices of which two billion are mobile.
We understand better than anyone, peoples
online behaviours and intent this data allows
us to deliver full funnel, brand and performance
advertising solutions from awareness to
purchase, at scale.

Get in touch
To find out more about what we can do
for you, email us at [email protected].

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