One of the many OMD UK Mobile deep dive sessions were hosted by IAB and being a data geek it was a must attend for me. Usually when people present data you’ll see some nodding heads and big yawns around the room but not with these guys, they know how to make research engaging and rather hilarious.
They began with telling us about their biggest research project to date – IAB Real View
It used really interesting new methodologies including Digital Ethnography (a fisheye camera worn for 3 days taking a photo every 5 seconds) and Mobile Aquarium (an app to record activity related to researching / buying in product category). You would think that wearing a camera all day would make you overly conscious of your actions but people became so comfortable that the IAB said they even saw some bums – scandalous!
Media Owner presentations often cite the notion of mobile phone being an extension of self, but IAB brought up the interesting point that it’s more than that; it’s an extension of our brains. A great example they used to demonstrate this was asking us how many of our friend’s numbers we could recall now and most of us couldn’t even recall one compared to the pre-mobile age where you knew all your best mates’ landlines.
This take on our connection to Smartphones came from Dr Simon Hampton: an expert in Cognative Psychology that the IAB brought in to help in attributing meaning to some of the behaviour that was observed in the Realview study. Dr Hampton is clearly their guru when it comes to the psychology behind what they call ‘Omniscreening’. If you click the link above, you can get a better overview of the Real View project and why it is so important that brands have their websites optimised across all devices.
The IAB’s Realview study, Mobile Optimisations audits, case studies and other resources are help were all touched on in the session, and can certainly help agencies and clients understand how they can best take advantage of the opportunities afforded by mobile devices. However, the IAB believe that agencies specifically have the power to do 3 simple things today to understand where clients can improve their mobile offering:
- Check how given brands perform in the IAB Mobile Optimisation audits. Not in there? You can assess a client that has not yet been audited using the IAB’s methodology. Just use all the devices you have to hand to see if your brand’s sites are optimised. There is nothing worse then trying to fill out a form of your personal details on a mobile that is of desktop size.
- Check what % of a client’s display spend is currently on mobile. Are they falling behind the average 23%? If so they may be lagging behind their competitors in a very opportunity-rich space.
- Examples! What better way to demonstrate to your clients the need to optimise than showing them great pieces of work that has been a success already?!
Can you believe a whopping 36% of the top 100 UK brands aren’t even mobile optimised?! Crazy I know! Don’t let your brand be one of them.