According to a report from eMarketer, based on data from Brightkite, and market research agency Gfk NOP, iPhone users are able to recall ads they’ve seen on their mobile phone better than users for other mobile devices. Across the spectrum of mobile applications, ranging from surfing the web to playing games and listening to internet-based radio, about 59% of iPhone users recalled ads, while only 38% of non-iPhone users were able to recall ads they had seen on their phones.
Overall, iPhone users were almost three times as likely to remember ads they had seen in their mobile browser than non-iPhone users. Given that the iPhone offers a more compelling mobile web experience than most other phones, this number isn’t really that surprising. Similarly, while only 7.3% of non-iPhone users recalled ads on mobile social networks, almost 20% of iPhone users were able to do so. These numbers also hold true for location-based services (15.4% vs. 4.3%), mobile video services (14.8% vs. 5.2%), and games (7.1% vs. 3.7%).
Interestingly, with regards to ads in SMS messages, the numbers were pretty close (22.5% vs. 17.6%). This seems to be an area where the iPhone doesn’t outshine other phones.
Of course, with the impending release of the Palm Pre and the large number of Android phones in the handset makers’ pipeline, it will be interesting to see if these numbers will look similar on phones that are able to offer comparably compelling experiences (though, at least in the beginning, without the tens of thousands of apps that iPhone users have access to). It would be nice to see numbers that compare recall rates just for users of smartphones, like the iPhone or Blackberries. But for mobile advertisers, these are encouraging numbers, especially given that more and more users are drifting away from feature phones and towards smartphones like the iPhone.
