The impact of the iPhone on the way Millennials communicate with each other and with commercial media is hard to overstate. Yet advertisers appear to be slow to catch on.
Here is some data for perspective:
- iPhone users represent just 1% of the world’s 2.7 billion mobile devices, but iPhone users completely eclipse those using any other mobile device in their data use — 95% of those who own an iPhone regularly surf the Internet, and 65% of those browsing on mobile devices are using iPhones.
- Google sees 50 times the number of searches from iPhones than from any other mobile device!
- iPhone owners are young. According to a March Rubicon study, half are under 30 and 15% are students.
- iPhones account for up to 75 percent of the video impressions in recent advertising campaigns.
- According to Simmons New Media Study, many consumers say they are ready for mobile advertising. More than one-third of consumers who are online for at least one hour a week rate themselves as being interested in receiving ads via their mobile, provided there is a tangible incentive.
With such a young, video-enabled, advertising-tolerant target, one would think advertisers would be clamoring to develop campaigns just for Millennials and their iPhones, if not for the entire mobile market. This is in fact the opinion of Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO. He believes the iPhone will be responsible for exponential growth in the mobile advertising market:
“The iPhone was the first mobile device with a good Web browser, and more
such devices will follow. Advertising will then become very personal. In a few
years, mobile advertising will generate more revenue than advertising on the
normal Web.”Yet from the cases available, it doesn’t appear that more than a handful of advertisers — Zagat and the Weather Channel come to mind — share Schmidt’s enthusiasm. Why aren’t advertisers viewing the web-enabled mobile phone as a separate category of advertising, along with the PC, radio and TV? I really have no idea.
