LONDON: Mobile advertising that references consumers’ interests or location drives twice as much engagement as generic mobile ads, according to new research.

Verve, a location-based mobile marketing platform, surveyed 2,000 UK adults and found that over half (56%) thought most ads they see on their mobile are boring or dull and only one in ten (11%) said these were helpful.

Just 17% were ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’ to interact with a generic ad on their phones, but this figure leapt to 38% if the ad was related to a user’s interests or hobbies and to 34% if the ad was related to where they were at that particular time.

In addition to this, of those who engaged with mobile ads, a third said they would interact with an ad related to where they planned to be in the future.

With so much advertising clutter, the average consumer ignores more than seven mobile ads a day, which, Verve pointed out, amounts to 20 million ads ignored every hour nationwide.

And while relevance is needed to drive engagement, it is not sufficient: marketers also need to ensure that ad format is appropriate for mobile.

Almost 8 in 10 Brits (78%) reported seeing ads that were simply too small to read or which contained too much text.

Verve highlighted several ways in which advertisers can improve engagement, including developing ads that use phone mechanics such as tilt, tap, zoom, change point of view (20%), ads that are like games or which encourage navigation through them (19%), or asking questions and expecting a response (21%).

“It is evident that more needs to be done to ensure advertisers are making full use of the data sources available to create exciting ad experiences on mobile,” said Ian James, GM International, Verve.

“The expectation of personalisation from today’s consumer is on the rise, bringing to the fore the sheer importance of using smart data sets to power creative experiences.”

Sourced from Verve; additional content by WARC staff