Advertisers, as a whole, are blowing it. Wasting an opportunity to reach people where they interact: on their mobile devices.

Check out this slide from Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends 2016 deck:

That’s right. There is a $22 BILLION gap between mobile usage and mobile ad spending.

This is very interesting. Advertisers are over-committed on legacy media where the usage is dropping. Only 4% of American’s media time in 2015 was spent reading print, but it received 16% of the advertising dollars. Whereas mobile received 12% of ad spending while US consumers spend 25% of their media time (and 5 hours per day) on mobile devices.

This does not make sense. Or does it?

We have a few hypotheses on why this discrepancy exists:

• Perhaps brands are more comfortable with what worked in the past — print, tv, radio?
• Perhaps brands are still catching up to the fast changing consumption of media on mobile devices?
• Perhaps brands are challenged by the fact that consumers today have never, ever been more empowered to choose what ads and content they engage in.

Although all of these hypotheses have some merit, we think the biggest issue is the last one — consumers today can control whether or not to engage with ads. Consider these statistics:

• 81% of podcast listeners skip commercials (Pacific Content)
• 94% of viewers skip video pre-roll ads (Contently)
• 81% of consumers mute video ads (Internet Trends 2016)
• 86% of TV viewers skip advertising (The Guardian)
• 62% of people are put off by brands forcing pre-roll viewing (Internet Trends 2016)
• 93% of people consider using ad-blocking software (Internet Trends 2016)
• Mobile ad blocking is up 97% (Internet Trends 2016)

Those types of stats make brands stop and think, “Should we spend our precious dollars on internet and mobile advertising..or not?”

These behaviours change the game for brands and force the asking of a new question. It’s not about whether brands should spend in the mobile space — of course they should. It’s the fastest growing space where consumers spend their time (66% growth in 2015). The new question is HOW should brands spend on mobile.

The answer: don’t advertise.

Make great content that people actually want to engage with. Content gives the consumer control to consume what they do and do not want, without interruptions. The only trick for brands is that your content has to be FANTASTIC to get noticed. Per Seth Godin: “Good marketers tell stories. Either you’re going to tell stories that spread or you will become irrelevant.”

The Internet Trends 2016 report expanded on this idea suggesting “Ways Video Ads Can Work, per Unruly”

1. Authentic
2. Entertaining
3. Evoke Emotion
4. Personal / Relatable
5. Useful
6. Viewer Control
7. Work with Sound Off
8. Non-Interruptive Ad Format

To dig in on this further, we proposed to 1,201 respondents the question “What is the Best Way to Advertise”? With 6 response options (multiple answers). The results:

• Be Authentic (29.1%)
• Provide Useful Information (28.5%)
• A Format that Does Not Interrupt (25.5%)
• Be Entertaining and Evoke Emotion (20.5%)
• Be Personable / Relatable (20.3%)
• User Control (Engage, Skip or Block Ad) (14.7%)

Interestingly, User Control was least selected answer. People don’t necessarily need control…but they certainly exercise their control when the other key elements of great content are not in place. They want valuable content rather than being forced to control interruptions.

This is a call to arms for brands to create content that is friendly for mobile. We are fond of saying “Why make interruptions people hate when you can make content people love” and the data backs it up.

So when considering the $22 BILLION gap between mobile usage and mobile ad spending, there is a huge opportunity waiting for brands that start with the premise of making consumers happy when they interact with a brand on mobile.

One last stat: 75% of podcast consumption in 2016 takes place on mobile.

Find out why podcasts are the perfect medium for branded content.

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