UK more responsive to Olympic sponsor mobile ads than US
UK consumers are unlikely to use their mobile phones to look up products of their national teams’ official sponsors, but are more likely to respond to mobile ads from official sponsors than their US counterparts, research has found.
Only 20 per cent of US consumers and 12 per cent of UK consumers will look up products that their team or athletes endorse, the survey by the UK’s Internet Advertising Bureau, US Interactive Advertising Bureau and ad network Mojiva found.
It also found that UK respondents were more likely than Americans to pay attention to an ad from an official sponsor because sponsor companies were better known in the host country.
With the London 2012 Olympic Games in its first week, the survey of UK and US mobile phone users gives brands an insight into how consumers are likely to use their phones to view sponsors’ brands and adverts during the Olympics.
The survey, which asked consumers about how they planned to watch the Olympics on their mobile phones, found that half of both US and UK sports fans will use mobile devices for Olympic-related activities while watching live events on TV, demonstrating the proliferation of dual screen viewing behaviour.
UK and US mobile phone users were equally likely (60 per cent) to interact with mobile ads “sometimes” but UK consumers were more likely to interact with ads frequently. Almost a third (32 per cent) of UK respondents said they interact with mobile ads daily, while only 25 per cent of Americans.
Other findings included:
- Twenty two per cent of US and UK respondents plan to stream games live on mobile device.
- Seventy eight per cent of UK respondents said they would access a mobile data service if they were to attend the Games.
- US respondents are more inclined to interact with mobile ads featuring an athlete they like than UK respondents (18% vs. 6%), but UK respondents are more likely to say they respond to mobile ads from official Olympic sponsors (13% vs 8%) and ads featuring sport of interest (36% vs 22%)
- US mobile phone users said they would prefer “amusing or entertaining” ads during the Olympics while UK consumers said they were more likely to watch sport-related ads.
