What is a ‘Tween’ you ask? Well it’s those in ‘preadolescence’, that is, the stage between middle childhood and adolescence, in the range of 10 to 12 years old. In short one of the fastest growing audience segments with an even faster growing appetite for smartphones and tablets.

Two thirds of tweens own or have access to smartphone while almost 50% have regular access to tablets, a new report from Pacific Magazines has revealed.

The Tween Tracker research study, which surveyed over 1700 people aged between six and 12 years, illuminates the lifestyles of a demographic which controls $1.4bn annual spend in the economy, according to Pac Mags.

Other findings included the fact that three in five tweens have a say in choosing the grocery products bought each week, and that social connections are more important than ever, with the top five sources of happiness in 2012 family, friends, pets, magazines, and TV/movies.

Miriam Condon, research and strategy director, Pac Mags, said: “Children are often at the heart of family decisions, with activities and purchases centred on their likes and interests.

“This latest research reflects Pacific Magazines’ commitment in the future generation of consumers. As one of the most innovative research studies of its kind in the country, Tween Tracker presents a unique overview into the needs, likes, fears and ambitions of Australian tweens today.”

Mychelle Vanderburg, youth publisher, Pacific Magazines, said: “The results provide a barometer into the hearts and minds of Australian youth – but also clear-cut guidelines to marketers on how to communicate, engage and interact in a meaningful way with tweens today.”

The new research comes as Pacific Magazines expands touch-points for K-Zone and Total Girl readers, with newly launched Channel Seven TV shows K-Zone TV and Total Girl TV.

In the past six months, K-Zone and Total Girl’s circulation increased by 3.0% to 42,042 copies and 3.4% to 48,145 copies respectively.

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By now we have all realised the importance that mobile advertising plays (we hope!). With the insanely fast adoption of tablets and mobile devices still growing and advertisers expected to increase their spend in this medium even more next year, what are the trends in this space to watch out for?

1. SMS – it’s still important.

SMS is one of the most popular communication methods in the world. The rise of text messaging can be attributed to its low cost and ease of use. If you have a cell phone, you have the capability to text — no downloads or installations needed. And with the advent of unlimited messaging plans, texting has become the mobile communication option of choice for cell phone-toting teens, beating out e-mail, and phone conversations.
source: Comscore 2010 US Mobile Subscriber Market report

So what about the effectiveness?

The average CTR for text messaging is 14.06%, while the average conversion rate is 8.22%. E-mail brings in an average CTR of 6.64% and an average conversion rate of about 1.73%, and Internet display doesn’t even hit the radar with an average CTR of 0.76% and average conversion rate of 4.43%, according to the Direct Marketing Association’s 2010 Response Rate Trend Report.

According to digital trend publication Mashable, The response rates that marketers experience via texting campaigns are definitely attractive. These high action rates are probably due to the fact that texting is an opt-in marketing channel, in which consumers actively seek out information and sign-up for updates.
mashable.com  August 2010

2. Rich Media

Google has recently acquired some mobile advertising platforms and according to Mashable, we’re going to see a lot of development around rich media in the coming year.

“engagement rates in mobile blow away the best of online rich media, and engagement times in mobile rival those of television [advertising].” … engagement rates as high as 33% on rich media ads, with rates consistently hitting above 20%. At the low end of the spectrum, simple, expandable ads reach 6-7% engagement rates, which is still high when compared to other advertising options in mobile and online. These rates are “unheard of in the online world,” mashable.com 20 August 2010

3. Mobile Sites vs. Mobile Apps

One of the biggest decisions for mobile marketers this year is whether they should build a mobile site or app — or both. And for advertisers, the question is whether to advertise on mobile sites, apps, or both.

But there is a bigger question here on where mobile is going. With Google betting on mobile web and search as the future, and Apple taking the app route, it is still not clear which platform consumers will prefer in coming years. Because of this fragmented mobile browsing experience, developing either can seem like a huge commitment to marketers, especially since mobile spending currently makes up less than 5% of marketing budgets in many organizations. Lets continue to track the developments in this space over 2012.

4. Geo-Loco

We’re looking forward to the evolution of location-centric mobile apps, and in terms of advertising, we’re excited to see how advertisers will utilize them. We’ve already seen a healthy usage of the popular location-based checkin app Foursquare by many brands, especially newspapers, magazines and other publishers. For advertisers, marketing within apps is as easy as creating an ad-campaign targeted to a specific audience and brands are seeing CTRs of 15%. Again more developments to come.

5. Mobile Video is on the up and UP

With the explosion of Internet video consumption, it is predicted that mobile video will also be largely adopted in the coming year. Additionally with the roll out of the NBN, many predictive stats tell the story of video’s increasing importance.

By 2013, some even believe that video will be so widely adopted that it will be a significant driver of mobile data usage — occupying an estimated 66% of mobile traffic, Cisco forecasts.

With video taking an increasingly important role in the mobile market, advertisers should keep their eyes open for opportunities to try out new advertising options.

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Head of 3dinteractive’s Jaysen Du Plessis recently spoke with Marketing Magazine about why mobile brand executions need to have more of a personal connectivity to their audience than any other medium.

Read the article here

Speak with the 3di team about our mobile advertising  solutions

experts@3dinteractive.com.au

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Adnews recently highlighted a strong trend in mobile advertising in Australia, today Australia has one of the highest rates of mobile phone ownership in the world. State-of-the-art network coverage is available to more than 98 per cent of the population and most likely to view mobile advertising over our US, UK and European counterparts.

A report found that Australia’s iPhone OS ad impression share of 42% is significantly higher than the US at 19% and Europe at 30%.

Australians are the most comfortable with mobile advertising of any country in the world, with 75% of Australians agreeing with the statement that they are either “very comfortable” or “somewhat comfortable” with mobile advertising.

Of the 14 countries studied across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the US, Australians were the most comfortable consumers in the world, 10 points higher than the US at 65%.

Darren Davidson from Adnews writes:

“Australia is clearly one of the world’s leading markets when it comes to mobile advertising,”

“Consumers are highly accepting of mobile advertising likely due to the immersive and rich experiences available on iPhone, and more recently Android, devices that prevail in this highly evolved market.”

Excerpt quoted from AdNews publication, 08 February, 2011 www.adnews.com.au

See the whole article here http://www.adnews.com.au/news/australians-prefer-mobile-ads

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