Safeguarding a brand’s reputation in the smartphone industry
There’s no denying that millennials and genz of today prefer communicating via social media, texts, and email to talking on the phone. This is now becoming pervasive across users of all ages, especially in the COVID-19 era. Phones today are no longer just smartphones, but they encompass all facets of life for a user. This is the new era of smartphone usage where the device is moving past the only communication stage.
Smartphone applications are at the forefront of today’s users. Even businesses have acknowledged the rise of creating user-friendly applications to attract users. Today’s smartphones come pre-loaded with applications for easy access for their consumers, which define a brand’s reputation among consumers apart from other features. With the application, usage comes commerce.
From social media to eCommerce, from gaming to education, users are constantly hooked onto their smartphones 24X7, thus giving the brand a medium to increase their awareness via leveraging the increased app usage. There has been a significant rise in in-app advertising, which contributes a majority part of a brand’s marketing mix, thus increasing the complexity of online marketing.
With increased smartphone penetration, the upcoming 5G ecosystem, smartphones of today are the preferred mode of media consumption which clearly states that mobile advertising is garnering a lion’s worth of share among digital marketers and brands of today.
Reports have indicated that India will have about 829 million smartphone users by 2022, thus paving the way for brands to target a vast pool of consumers. Another study suggests that brands are now investing 45-55% of their digital advertising budget on mobile advertising, while it is stated to increase by 70% by 2022.
Amid this rapid evolution of smartphone usage and changes in communication methodologies, brands are now marred with the complex challenge of creating effective mobile advertising strategies that resonate with the users and ensure that the advertisements are delivered in a brand-safe environment. This is a crucial aspect because smartphones are no longer adult-owned devices but are being used by people across age categories and kids alike. Online gaming, eCommerce, education,
More often than not, the smartphone, although being a personal device to a user, is also used by kids and other family members in the house. Online gaming, eCommerce, and the web are not private spaces, and users can navigate freely across digital mediums. The openness and unregulated dynamics of these mediums have raised brand safety concerns in recent years, keeping in mind when and where a brand’s advertisement appears.
Consumers (including kids) are at risk of being exposed to objectionable content such as pornography, terrorism, sexual exploitation of children, fake news, hate speech, and much more. Not just this, there has been an exponential growth in incidents of app spoofing, hidden ads, hijacked mobile devices, and account takeover issues (ATOs).
Statistics suggest that children spend more hours on e-gaming platforms, which exposes them to two main risks- unregulated processing of personal data and unintentional serving of age-restricted ads (condoms, gambling, and much more).
More often than not, specific mobile advertising strategies adopt gamification features that attract children. Upon clicking the ads, they’re then retargeted to websites with objectionable content, or such links are malicious adware that hijacks the device.
Scammers lure them on the pretext of awarding game coins and rewards if they download a particular app on their phones, and then these devices are used by scammers to create more significant frauds. This puts the smartphone brand image in jeopardy, for no one knows how the app came in the first place or the occurrence of the advertisement.
Exposure to violence is another threat that becomes a safety concern. The mobile ecosystem may or may not ever be brand-safe. However, it is imperative to take due precautions to prevent the brand image from being tainted and deploy the right tools to ensure a safe advertising environment.
Get in touch to learn more about brand safety and brand reputation.
