ALMOST HALF of all mobiles have smart phone

capabilities including an oper-ating system, downloadable applications, email and web browsing. These present a wealth of ways for consumers to interact with their mobile phones, and each way presents a golden opportunity for mar-keters to reach them.

Fly Research carried out an exclusive survey of 753 mobile phone users for Market Leader to find out what this growth in the take-up of smart phones means for marketers.

Perhaps the most surprising finding of the research is that consumers are rather more open-minded about interact-ing with marketers than the latter have become used to.

The key is that this is a reciprocal deal: companies and brands can contact smart phone users as long as they deliver something useful.

As smart phones are nearly always with consumers and always on, these findings could herald the start of a quantum leap in convenient consumer-to-brand connectivity.

When it comes to smart phones, the iPhone is the clear market leader: its share of the global smart phone market has more than doubled in the past year to 17 per cent, according to CCS Insight, the mobile analysts.

However, the iPhone’s share of mobile data traffic is almost three times greater than this, at 50 per cent. Apple’s design focus and its control of both hardware and software have helped make the iPhone genu-inely easy to use, enabling con-stant access ro email, social networking, photos and files.

When given the choice of any phone ‘for free tomorrow’,

43 per cent of UK consumers chose iPhone as their dream phone (followed by 15 per cent BlackBerry, 5 per cent Nokia and 4 per cent Google Nexus One). Despite its

introduction as a business tool, BlackBerry is prospering by introducing consumer-friendly handset designs with a more feminine appeal and easy-to-use core functions such as emailing and access to social networking sites.

Bulk of mobile internet traffic

comes from smart phone users

Just over 6 in 10 UK adults access the internet on their mobiles, and just over a third at least once a day. The bulk of this traffic comes from smart phone users who are now the most frequent users of the mobile internet: 69 per cent accessing it daily and 55 per cent four or more times a day, with one in 10 going online once an hour or more.

So what exactly are people doing on their phones at the moment? The use for phone calls has not changed.

On the other hand, non-voice activities have seen dra-matic increases, with six in 10 smart phone users claiming that since they bought their most recent handset they are using more mobile applica-tions, doing more browsing

and sending more email. Almost a quarter now say

they are buying more goods and services from online retail-ers via their phone than before. In fact the term mobile phone really is a misnomer now –mobiles are becoming far more than that, and consumers are becoming far more dependent on them.

Increased dependency is in large part due to the ‘app’. Not all apps deliver on these advan-tages since in our study respondents experienced just slightly more misses than hits.

Nevertheless, the app phenom-enon is a defining characteristic of the iPhone, and other device mak-ers are working hard to catch up.

Eight-five per cent of smart phone users have downloaded an app on to their mobile – and in the past four weeks an average smart phone user downloaded 5.5 apps.

Games remain the most popular activity, closely fol-

lowed by social networking. Apps offer good opportunities for innovative brands to get onside with consumers by offering them something ‘useful’ – for instance, something that could become an integral part of a personal device that is becoming an essential part of everyday life.

So apps are making mobiles even more indispensable to con-sumers – 47 per cent of non-smart phone owners claimed a day without their mobile

would be very inconvenient, but the figure for smart phone owners was 80 per cent.

As in previous surveys, mobile phone users, smart or otherwise, are not overwhelm-ingly in favour of receiving advertisements on their hand-sets. Mobiles, however, now provide an opportunity for companies that might not think of themselves as technol-ogy providers to start engaging with customers.

A good example is Jamie Oliver’s £2.99 reci-

pe app – cheaper than a book but goes with you when shopping and gives you an ingredient shopping list.

Our study shows that this type of marketing is actually per-ceived very posi-

tively by consumers. More than that, if brands are able to provide genuinely useful tools, not only can brands benefit from this new platform to deliver their messages but they will even find some consumers are happy to pay for this.

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Getting onside with consumers by getting inside their mobilesFROM CAMILLA BENNISON AND IAN DAVIDSON, FLY RESEARCH

The many faces of the Apple iPhone

Google’s Nexus One

Another trend for retailers and branded goods manufac-turers to monitor is the amount of consumers accessing the internet from their handsets while shopping in store. Already 28 per cent of shop-pers say they have done this. At 52 per cent the figure is much higher for smart phones.

This is not all positive. Unsurprisingly, retailers resent being price-checked by con-nected mobile consumers who then take their business else-where. But the research indi-cates that retailers could turn this capability to their advantage.

While resistant to ‘head on’ advertising, 81 per cent of mobile phone owners would be receptive to receiving rele-vant offers in store via mobile couponing if it could provide them near-internet prices without the wait.

The ability to compete on price in this way could be extremely useful to high street

Market Leader Quarter 2, 2010 19

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retailers competing with the internet. Many brands would say they do not need to under-stand the mobile space, but it is risky to ignore a platform that connects to more than 90 per cent of UK consumers.

They have to recognise that smart phones offer huge opportunities to marketers – not only is the channel ‘always with’ but it is ‘always on’.

Over the years consumers have learnt to erect walls against marketers. Now mar-keters have an opportunity to redress the balance by getting on the inside and delivering value in innovative ways. It is both a creative and product challenge but it is arguably even more significant than the original internet revolution. ¦

Ian Davidson is CEO and Camilla Bennison is research director at Fly Research.Camillab@flyrearch.com

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