The Box Office in Your Pocket

Sometimes, we just want to kick back with a bucket of popcorn and watch a good movie. But there are so many questions that need to be answered first— What’s playing? Which theater should I go to? What time does the show start? Did the movie get a good review? Am I going to be able to get tickets? The list just goes on and on.

As mobile devices continue to act as our personal assistants, consumers are turning to their smartphones for answers to these entertainment-related questions. So, last month RadiumOne conducted a survey examining how consumers use their smartphones to make purchase-related decisions, such as researching which movie to see, viewing trailers, and purchasing movie tickets.

Our survey respondents indicated that they predominantly use the mobile web in a research capacity. Here was the demographic breakdown of those surveyed:

• 17.6% were aged 55+
• 46% were aged 35-54,
• 34.9% were aged 18-34
• 1.5% were under 18

56% of survey respondents stated that they use their phones to look up movie times, while 20% use their phones to watch trailers. Later, when asked why mobile users watch movie trailers on their phones, 50% again cited research as a decisive influence, suggesting that consumers are more likely to engage with interactive, contextual advertisements.

Thinking beyond the initial engagement, RadiumOne unearthed that nearly 79% of the audience explicitly prefer to purchase tickets on-location at the theater while 21% would rather buy them on their phone. Of that 21%, 16% feel safer making the purchase on a mobile app such as Fandango or MovieTickets.com. What’s more, advertisers and the entertainment industry would be interested to know that 63% responded favorably to purchasing tickets on their mobile devices if the option was presented to them after viewing a movie trailer.

With these insights in mind, it is imperative for entertainment advertisers to begin putting more thought into mobile creative to take full advantage of the mobile device’s native features.

Here are some additional suggestions gleaned from our research:

• Embed a calendar feature within the advertisement as a way by which consumers can remind themselves of times/dates of upcoming shows playing near them
• Our research shows that users are likely to buy tickets after seeing a movie trailer— include a call to action that redirects the user to purchase tickets on a mobile site
• Make sure to provide the ability to share the ad since personal recommendations are a major influence on purchase decisions. Advertisers can save money and build social credibility by leveraging sharing users as brand ambassadors that will excite other friends to see the movie

Advertisers should look at mobile as a clear choice for maximizing ticket sales during the holiday movie season. They need to perceive mobile as a primary tool for reaching audiences who make purchase decisions largely based on the research performed on their phones. The results of our research make it clear that consumers value relevant information, and more importantly, efficiency. By bridging advertisements and movie trailers with direct-purchase options, advertisers open up the possibility of tracking not only conversions, but also direct ROI.

Bigger Screen, Bigger Opportunities

When it comes to screen real estate, size matters. And, within the diverse landscape that is the mobile device kingdom, tablets continue to dominate in this respect. Certainly, the introduction of tablets into the daily lives of consumers has not only reshaped the way by which individuals interact with consumable brands, but more importantly how companies can more effectively engage their audiences and drive incremental sales this holiday season.  There is much to be learned in the way of mobile user behavior, and while the industry continues to navigate its way through this complex ecosystem, RadiumOne positions itself as a thought leader in helping advertisers to take advantage of first party consumer data, transforming analytics into actionable intelligence.

In a recent mobile survey, RadiumOne set out to test several key hypotheses concerning tablet use by consumers.  Specifically, the survey addresses audience engagement, device utility and temporal and environmental activity. While the expected results underlying each of these topics of interest might appear intuitive, RadiumOne challenges today’s conventional understanding of tablet behavior by going to consumers directly and stress-testing these assumptions in the field.

For example, participating survey respondents indicated:

• 45.9% use tablets for primary research
•  17.5% use tablets mostly for comparison shopping
• 39.5% use tablets most often in the evening
• 70.7% use tablets primarily in a home setting, 24.2% at both home and work
• 63.2% use tablets whilst passing time, while 28.7% use them while watching television

These statistics, although not entirely unexpected, should for all intents and purposes provide data-driven justification for how users engage with their tablets. In order to make use of this data, a framework is required. The audience and demographic profile of those participants in the survey will help place this information into context quite nicely. Provided that 76.7% of the surveyors were of the ages 35-55+ and that 68.5% of the sample population were women, a clearer picture emerges from the stats and figures above. For mobile savvy advertisers, these statistics confirm user behavior by what is surely one of the most sought after mobile audiences: women with discretionary income.

As the holiday season kicks into top gear, RadiumOne recommends, based on its survey findings, that advertisers should consider doing the following to best optimize their mobile campaigns and increase sales returns.

• Tailor ad creative to a parenting audience by including in-app holiday promotions and call-to-action buttons that allow the distribution of shared content across social networks
• Leverage the power of cross-platform interaction by synchronizing ad delivery at peak viewing times for both televised and tablet content
• Offer consumers a clean and efficient way to make purchases by providing one-click-buy, add-to-cart, or quick-step checkouts, either within the ad or presented directly thereafter

Advertisers have a myriad of tools at their disposal to broaden the audience funnel and drive consumer sales on tablets. When tablet based campaigns are combined with traditional mobile smartphone and digital media buys, cross-platform targeting will be advantageous in achieving key marketing and performance objectives, especially as holiday shopping continues to heat up.

Generation C: Bolstering Mobile Momentum

Mobile smartphones for today’s consumers are what Swiss Army Knives have long been for outdoorsmen—a multi-functional tool, whose features are used both for utility and for enjoyment. And while the everyday battles of urban survival may seem trivial, smartphone users’ behaviors continue to suggest that mobile applications play a significant role in the day-to-day bustle. From playing the latest trending games and watching hot off-the-press videos, to deep dive comparison-shopping, mobile users engage with and consume content in a number of ways.

Last month, a survey of Generation C mobile users conducted by RadiumOne found new insights into the ways that consumers are responding to and interacting with mobile advertisements.

Research highlights include:

• 47% of respondents indicated they have clicked on a mobile advertisement
• 55% have made a purchase on their mobile device in the last 6 months
• 35% have used mobile payments in-store
• 55% have used their mobile device to comparison shop at least once per week

Mobile has also reinvigorated the sharing of coupons and offers with family and friends. When asked how frequently these mobile shoppers share coupons, sales, and promotional offers with their direct social networks and family members, just shy of half of the surveyors said they used their smart phones for this purpose approximately 1-6 times per month.  This shows that sharing offers is not only a phenomenon of face-to-face interactions and desktop display channels, but it is also happening at an increasing pace on consumers’ mobile devices.

Generation C, which is comprised of adults 18-34, pro-actively leverages mobile advertisements as a form of peer-to-peer sponsorship for certain products and sales offerings. A whopping 79% of respondents revealed that mobile purchases are largely driven by personal recommendations and sales based content. This observation in and of itself should capture the attention of advertisers strategizing their next mobile campaign. These statistics overwhelmingly support the broad impact social influence continues to have on mobile platforms. With tools such as RadiumOne’s audience amplification technology, ShareGraph^TM, advertisers can leverage their current consumers as brand ambassadors to promote products more robustly and contextually. Strong media partners who possess access to first-party data offer a competitive advantage in delivering mobile-based campaigns, as they are able to act and make decisions in real-time.

The same study also took a deeper dive into consumers’ common smartphone behaviors. Turns out, there isn’t equality among the apps. The survey found that for a majority of users, mobile apps act as a direct substitute for traditional forms of entertainment. The two most popular app categories were gaming and entertainment and social networking.

As Generation C continues to rely on their phones more and more, there is no doubt that their tastes will be refined and advertisers will create new ways to interact with this growing audience. Advertising campaign messages and branding schematics applied to traditional and display campaigns may in fact have to be re-directed to suit the tastes of the next generation of mobile consumers.