I just read a great article about Mobile Marketing targeting teenagers.  It was full of stats that support my thoughts on the mobile response rates of teens. I hate to pigeonhole Mobile Marketing as a “teens only” medium—especially when I am selling to big brands that liberally use the “teens only” objection. These agencies are usually hesitant to implement mobile into their marketing plans because they incorrectly assume that texting is for teenagers who don’t have the buying power of the 25-55 year olds.  They believe their brands won’t see an immediate impact because no one in the 25-55 yr old demographic texts. I continue to disagree with them and I know—based on campaigns that 3Cinteractive has successfully run for our clients— the older demographics are texting and interacting with brands via SMS.

Of course, teens embrace texting more rapidly than the other demographics—just look around any corporate board room. The older generations in the room either didn’t know how to text 12 months ago or they learned how to text from their children. That’s fine, just know that everyone is texting these days. That’s right. Everyone. It is the ultimate direct response vehicle. The key is to figure out where the mobile advertising and mobile marketing opportunity lie and capitalize on that knowledge.

Now, lets dig in to see some statistics on teens’ willingness and openness for Mobile Advertising. Great insight can be gained from analyzing the stats and charts in the article. Look at the second graph at the bottom. Teens were more likely to respond to a Poll or Survey using a short code, but check out the other two bars on the graph. Teens were less likely to respond to SMS ads or use a short code displayed in an advertisement. That is huge for brands and agencies targeting non-teens. Their judgment about teens response rates is actually backwards! Their non-teen target is more likely to respond to their ad. So in the end, teens embrace the newest technology first, but the older demos go deeper and have a greater acceptance. Great news for our agencies and brands trying to gain the attention of the 25+ crowd.  Take a look below…

- Chris Field

Teens to Mobile Advertisers: Gimme!
NOVEMBER 25, 2008
eMarketer
www.emarketer.com

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.

US Teen and Young Adult Mobile Phone Users Who Respond to Mobile Phone Offers, by Age, March-April 2008 (% of respondents)

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.

US Teen and Total Mobile Phone Users Who Have Responded to Mobile Advertising, June 2008 (% of respondents)

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.