Teens want incentivized mobile ads

It’s a game of give and take when it comes to mobile advertising to teens. They don’t mind having ads sent to their handsets, just as long as there is something in it for them.

by Helen Leggatt

According to Harris Interactive’s recently released study entitled “2008 Consumer Acceptance of Mobile Advertising” teens need decent incentives to view ads on their mobiles.

While cash remains a big motivator the study found that offering teens an experience is also very successful. The majority of ads that teens request are for sports, entertainment and travel – 70% compared with 46% for adults – and experiences centered on those interests work best, i.e. free mobile calls, entertainment downloads and travel.

Extracting personal information from mobile users is getting tougher, especially from the younger users. Behavioral targeting is something that teens are both aware and wary of, perhaps due to the recent online privacy scares associated with social networking sites. In fact, teens are far more guarded about giving out personal information than adults, found the report (.pdf). Only 35% of teens said that they would give away personal information, even if there was an incentive, compared with 54% of adults.

And finally, even with all the media currently available to them on their mobile phones, the majority of users say text messaging remains the preferred ad delivery method.