Teens to Mobile Advertisers: Gimme!

More than one-half of teens do not want mobile ads. What about the rest?

If teens are drivers of change in mobile phone usage, can they also drive change in mobile advertising acceptance?

The good news is that, according to a 2008 survey by the Direct Marketing Association, 19% of teens ages 15 to 17 and adults ages 21 to 30 have responded to a mobile phone offer. However, the response rate dropped substantially to 7% among 18-to-20-year-olds.

The bad news? Harris Interactive and CTIA found that more than one-half of teen respondents were not interested in mobile ads, even in exchange for some type of incentive.

The silver lining: Teens were somewhat more likely than adults to be interested in mobile advertising; 64% of the adult group said they were not at all interested, according to Harris/CTIA.

Among the teens and adults who did say they would be motivated by incentives, the favorite was cold, hard cash. However, teens were more likely to appreciate free music downloads than adults. Free minutes were another popular incentive for teens, according to Harris.

Teens also were somewhat more responsive to ads that came in the form of polls or contests, according to comScore M:Metrics.

Assuming teens wanted to receive advertising on their phone, what would they most like to see? Ads aimed at areas of interest, such as sports or entertainment, according to Harris Interactive. Teens were substantially more interested in these ads than in restaurant ads, coupons or ads scheduled to arrive at a certain time of day.

Courtesy of http://www.emarketer.com