When Future becomes Present!
When I forgot my smartphone in my apartment last Friday, I had no idea how this little “mistake“ would affect my 3rd week at Havas Chicago.
Maybe you will just have a weary smile at me, but honestly - have you ever tried to renounce your smartphone for 24 hours? I had to, and believe me when I say I don’t suffer from Nomophobia but: “it was a nightmare”.
Not only was I consistently tardy to meetings (not having an alert reminding me when & where to go), I was also not able to check e-mails or messages while sitting around or watch clips from the news on the train.
When I visited friends for dinner, the conversation was rather monotonous “-Hey Manuela, have you read the news”- no- not yet, forgot my smartphone at home!
“Hey, have you seen that funny clip?” — No-not yet, forgot my smartphone at home!
“Oh-right, have you heard about that new app, saw that ad and ..” — NO! I forgot… ufff
This was the moment I realized how much I am used to having my smartphone around, and that people around me are constantly on their phones.
Suddenly, I could only think about what the future will look like — that is, until I came to the conclusion that we already live in the future. Therefore we would be well-advised to focus a bit more on mobile advertising ;)
Back at work on Monday, I tried to find out more about mobile use and advertising.
Here are some key facts I would like to share with you:
According to Mary Meeker’s 2017 Internet Trends report, Americans spend 28% of their time on mobile devices yet, only 21% of ad spending is targeting mobile.
Current stats and analyses of mobile trends show that users are not spending their time exclusively on Facebook and Google apps. Rather, users are spending time on games (43%), social networking (26%), entertainment (10%), utilities (10%), news (2%), productivity (2%), health and fitness (1%), lifestyle (1%) and others (5%).
48% of consumers start mobile research with a search engine.
Over 50% of smartphone users grab their smartphone immediately after waking up.
I’ll admit it, I’m part of that 50% who reaches for my smartphone when I first wake up. ;)
Quite impressive numbers, so I decided to ask Mobext for deeper insights on how Havas Chi is dealing with this challenge.
I want to thank Nathan Joslin (Mobile Supervisor) at Mobext Chicago who invited me to spend time with the team to observe their daily workflow and find out more about this pure player.
Mobext starts every day with a short 10-minute meeting to see who is working on what campaign, if they are facing any issues, if anyone needs to be briefed, etc.
Afterwards, Kelsey Maciejewmski took me by the hand and showed me every single task she was working on.
Setting up a search campaign on Google AdWords for their client Telemundo, working on a geo targeting solution for an “old country store” ;) and working on a new briefing for one of America’s biggest retailers and their download app campaign.
Nate told me that time spent on mobile is growing. Facebook and Google are skilled at targeting ads, but the waves being made by other apps in the mobile advertising space should not be underestimated. Media Agencies and clients should both keep this in mind and start having more mobile advertising in their media mix strategies.
This makes absolute sense, as I could found out apps dominate (media time spent 89%) browsers in mobile usage.
I’m sure that mobile ad space is underutilized and we definitely should work on it — Especially on In-App Advertising (which I haven’t done yet, but definitely will when I am back in Germany). Thank you Mobext for being a specialist in this field and for letting me have a new view on mobile advertising.
So, no need to talk about future and how smartphones will affect it, for the future is almost present!
