Rich more likely to appreciate mobile advertising concludes BBC study
Affluent readers are more open to seeing adverts on their smartphones and are more likely to view it as a sign of a dynamic brand than the general population, a study by the BBC has suggested.
Australia’s Mumbrella reports on a survey BBC World News conducted to assess the engagement of its readership on its global news platform BBC.com, which the broadcaster claims reaches a high proportion of affluent consumers.
The survey, which compared the habits of 6,000 smartphone users in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Germany, Sweden and the US found more than a third (36 per cent) of the wealthiest people are happy to see ads on mobile websites.
Carolyn Gibson, head of international ad sales for BBC Worldwide said the BBC carries a lot of brand advertising and was interested to see what that meant for mobile, and whether it was the right environment to reach an upscale consumer.
She told Mumbrella: “Most of the studies on mobile haven’t taken that approach so we wanted to look at something specific to upscale consumers around the world to find out how they prefer to access news. Increasingly those upscale consumers are wanting to access news via mobile and are more likely to do so than the general population. So for us that was quite critical because it’s a really important part of our audience.”
Gibson said the BBC is also one of the most shared news sources on social media and it has taken advantage of this by sending out a daily blog and twice weekly video called BBC Trending, looking at the most shared stories and the reasons why they are being shared.
The survey also looked at the impact different devices have on news consumption and found those with the latest handsets are 10 per cent more likely to stream content or watch news videos.
The findings follow BBC Worldwide’s 2012 study that found 59 per cent of affluent consumers expected to consume more news on their mobiles in the next five years. And it showed that compared with 2012, 34 per cent more people are reading news on their mobiles rather than using them to just scan the headlines.