Mobile use simply doesn’t translate into mobile ad effects even for the most techno-literate demographics:
Teens have more than tripled their mobile data consumption in the past year… It is a growth rate faster than any other age group—much of it driven by teen males, who took in 382 MB per month while females used 266 MB… Yet marketers contemplating reaching this market via mobile ads might want to reconsider, especially if the target demographic is Hispanic. Forrester Research has found that while Hispanic American teenagers are strong users of mobile technologies they don’t necessarily respond to its advertising.
But since new communication platforms are shiny to new non-experts who need the institutional ethos provided by half-understood technology – cf. academia, social media utopianism in – political mobile ads are in this season:
Geo-targeted mobile advertising, which made its debut among political campaigns during the 2010 midterms but is just now becoming more widespread, offers presidential campaigns an attention-getting new way to stalk voters wherever they may be found — the state fair, the ballgame or the caucus site. On the presidential level, this means targeting ads at primary- and caucus-goers in the days leading up to the election — or even as they’re heading to the polls on Election Day… And while it’s still taking hold on the presidential level, mobile advertising is already being explored by several 2012 GOP hopefuls and a handful of state-level campaigns… The Obama campaign launched its mobile-optimized new site earlier this month, another sign that mobile will be important at the presidential level.
In fairness, at least they’re not opening offices in Second Life*.
* Precise and empirically demonstrated clinical utility, where text-based anonymity is combined with visually expressive avatars, yes; collective production and fluid subjectivity, which combine to level social hierarchies, not so much.
References:
* Teens Heavy Mobile Users. But Those Ads? Not So Much [Marketing Vox]
* Jay Rosen Is Wrong: “Twitter Revolution” And “Facebook Revolution” Cyber-Utopians Really Do Think It’s That Simple [Icon Index Symbol]
* Political advertisements go mobile for 2012 elections [Politico]
* An Exploration of Why People Participate in Second Life Social Support Groups [Green-Hamann et al / CMC]
* When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century [Carolyn Marvin / Amazon]
