Partner Article

Remaining relevant in a competitive mobile market

2013 has been a significant year in the omnipresence of mobiles.

In 2013, there are almost as many mobile subscriptions as people in the world – according to a United Nations report earlier in the year six billion of the world’s seven billion people now have mobile phones.

Whilst this number includes a mix of both feature phones and smartphone, smartphones are forecast to overtake feature phones by the end of 2013.

When it comes to consumer behaviour mobiles are integral to everyday living. There is a huge reliance on mobile devices to keep people connected with friends, family and for work, as well as turning to mobile devices for all kinds of needs – from information, shopping, entertainment and social networks.

According to a recent report from Ofcom, half of adults (51%) now own a smartphone and one in four (24%) households has a tablet computer and the report brought to the fore a couple of interesting trends in mobile behaviour:

• Media multitasking is when people are watching TV but are also either online on their phone or tablet or updating their social network status or firing off a tweet - according to Ofcom more than half (53%) regularly multi-task with other media while watching TV.
• Media stacking is another social phenomenon being driven by digital devices. Half (49%) of people use their smartphones and tablets for completely unrelated activities while watching TV every week – such as surfing the net (36%), social networking (22%) or online shopping (16%).

This increasing use of and reliance on mobile devices for information and connection to social networks, emails and interests only reinforces the fact that brands need to ensure that they are communicating effectively to their audiences via mobile, and drives the need to consider mobile optimisation of websites and ultimately think, mobile first!

The challenge for marketers is to understand the behaviour of the ‘Constantly Connected Consumer’ or Generation C; to ensure that their brands are gaining traction via the mobile so that they are deliver a compelling consumer experience.

Those brands that are doing it successfully already, have thought carefully about the audience they are targeting via mobile and how they want them to respond – either download an app, redeem a voucher, or build awareness with a certain demographic – and then build the campaign around that.

Generation C demands a real crosschannel experience with its brands and mobile can sit firmly at the heart of that.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by BuzzCity .