Is the elusive college-aged demographic willing to accept ads by cell phone? Sure, if you’re willing to pay them. Then again, given that the ads are as likely to dissuade the recipient from purchasing a product as they are to persuade him to buy it, it’s not likely marketers will be eager to bribe them.
An online survey of 669 students at the Indiana’s Ball State University last month found a third of students are receiving ads on their cell phones, an increase of 9% from the initial February 2005 study on the issue conducted by Michael Hanley, an assistant professor of advertising in the school’s journalism department, and the school’s Center for Media Design.
One-third of students who received cell-phone ads were annoyed to get an advertisement. That’s down from 92% in the previous study. But the survey also shows that about 55% said they were less likely to purchase a product from a business sending a cell-phone ad.
“Cell-phone ads to college students are growing at a rapid pace,” Hanley said in a statement. “Advertisers have a hard time reaching students using traditional media. The cell phone offers advertisers a direct pathway to students through a highly personal medium. The key is to find a way for an ad message to be accepted, not rejected.”
One way, judging from survey results, would be to pay the students to view the ads. Nearly 66% of the students would accept cell phone ads if they were paid to receive them. The survey found that 40% of students would accept each ad for $0.25 or less, while 60% said they would need to receive at least $1.00 per ad.
“Students are showing less resistance to receiving ads on their cell phones, but they still want to be able to control the amount and type of ads they receive,” Hanley said. “When we asked them what it would take to accept ads, they told us freebies or money. The pay-per-ad option got the best response.”
Hanley said that as cell phones become more sophisticated, with additional multimedia applications, so will the advertising industry.
“Advertisers who cater to the interactive and visual needs of college students will be rewarded,” he said. “There will always be those students who don’t want ads on their cell phones, but others will eventually accept ads that engage them and let them control the ad space. That, and a quarter per ad, will motivate students pretty fast.”
The online study of college students also found:
- About 96% have a cell phone.
- Nearly 70% have cell phones with Internet access.
- Twenty percent have received a cell ad from a person or business they did not know.
