There’s no denying the influence that e-commerce is having on the retail landscape, and that influence is starting to go mobile. And as that trend grows, marketers have an opportunity to leverage the influence of consumer preferences. Specifically, by crafting their messages around local interests, marketers stand to boost their engagement with the tech-savvy consumers that see their messages.
To gain additional insight, a recent Scarborough survey found that local influences heavily dictate the content preferences of mobile device users. Mobile ad-friendly shoppers (see infographic), defined by Scarborough as adults who used a smartphone or tablet in the past 30 days for shopping, agree they’d be willing to receive ads on their phone in exchange for certain services, or disagree that ads on phones are annoying.
For example, in Knoxville, Tenn., the city that boasts the highest percentage of mobile ad-friendly shoppers, the reality-adventure TV genre reigns for the group. In fact, mobile ad-friendly shoppers in Knoxville are 45 percent more likely to cite reality-adventure as television programming they typically watch. Science fiction and music videos are also Knoxville favorites.
Comparatively, TV viewing preferences in Roanoke, Va., which has the smallest percentage of mobile ad-friendly shoppers, are more diverse. For example, Roanoke mobile ad-friendly shoppers are almost three times more likely than all in that mobile group to typically watch daytime soap operas. In fact, Roanoke’s mobile ad-friendly shoppers are more likely to watch 16 of the 23 television genres that Scarborough measures, whereas those in Knoxville are only more likely to view four.
LOCAL SPORTS PLAY BIG AMONG MOBILE AD-FRIENDLY SHOPPERS IN KNOXVILLE AND ROANOKE
Football is a big draw among Knoxville’s mobile ad-friendly shoppers. This consumer group is 19 percent more likely than other smartphone or tablet users in the market to have watched a Tennessee Titans game on TV during the past year, and they’re 11 percent more likely to have watched the Super Bowl. In Roanoke, however, tennis and horse racing are popular. Roanoke’s mobile ad-friendly shoppers are 154 percent more likely than other smartphone or tablet users in the city to have watched men’s tennis on TV during the past year, and 80 percent more likely to have watched horse racing.
Mobile ad-friendly shoppers in Knoxville and Roanoke have overlapping interests in the UFC and WWE leagues.
LOCAL NEWS IS A SIGNIFICANT DIGITAL MEDIA INTEREST AMONG MOBILE AD-FRIENDLY SHOPPERS
Mobile ad-friendly shoppers are also big fans of online local news. About half of this consumer group in both Knoxville and Roanoke went online for local news during the past month, as did 48 percent of all mobile ad-friendly shoppers nationally.