1

2012 Olympic Games Go Mobile: United Kingdom vs. United States

A Report Prepared by the IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, IAB UK, and Mojiva Released July 31, 2012

Introduction With the Games of the XXX Olympiad underway in London, consumers around the world are avidly following this major event though a variety of media and devices. Mojiva, in partnership with the US IAB’s Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence and IAB UK, conducted a brief survey of American and British mobile consumers reached by its network, regarding their plans for the mobile summer Olympics. The results paint a picture of two countries that are similar in terms of mobile adoption and usage, but different in terms of Olympic interests and priorities.

Key Takeaways • Roughly three out of every four of both the US and UK respondents said they would follow their

country’s team on their mobile device in some way.

• 20% of US respondents will look-up products that team/athlete endorses … Only 12% of UK respondents will do so.

• Approximately 50% of both US and UK respondents will use their mobile device for Olympic-related activities while watching live events on TV.

• 22% of both US and UK respondents plan to stream games live on mobile device

• Almost 50% of both US & UK respondents say they click or interact with mobile ads at least once a week

• US respondents are more inclined to interact with mobile ads featuring an athlete they like than UK respondents (18% vs. 6%), but UK respondents are more likely to say they respond to mobile ads from official Olympic sponsors (13% vs 8%) & ads featuring sport of interest (36% vs. 22%)

2

Which Country’s Mobile Users Are More Apt to Follow the Games? As the hosts of this year’s games, one might expect UK consumers to be planning to pay close attention to how events unfold. Surprisingly, however, mobile survey respondents in the UK were relatively less likely to say they’d be following the games “very closely” or “somewhat closely” than American respondents were (65% in the UK; 76% in the US.) Perhaps the likely sheer saturation of Olympics coverage in the UK means that mobile users there are less prone to follow the games closely, because they will be following them regardless.

3

American and British Mobile Users Split on Plans to Follow Their Teams Drilling down to specific ways that mobile data can help a fan keep up with his or her country’s team, the results in the ‘mobile Olympics’ were split. Overall, UK respondents were slightly more likely to say they’d use their mobile device to follow Team GB during the games, and they were also more likely to say they’d research athletes and events and discuss or share team news than American respondents were. US respondents, by contrast, came out on top in terms of keeping up with the medal count, and also to look up products or services sponsored by Team USA or individual athletes.

4

Watching the Games on a Mobile Device The competition was extremely tight in terms of propensity to use mobile for video viewing or video-related activities. Some highlights include:

• It was a near tie in terms of using a mobile device for Olympics-related activities while watching the games on TV, too, with 47% of British respondents and 48% of Americans planning to do that.

• American and British respondents also tied in terms of their reported likelihood to watch the Olympics live on their mobile devices: 22% of the survey respondents in each country expected they would do that.

• American respondents, at a time-zone-based disadvantage, were more likely than their British counterparts to say they’d watch video highlights or replays on their device.

Attention-Getting Mobile Ads Differ for Americans and Brits When it comes to what kinds of mobile ads were likely to attract the attention of people accessing mobile Olympics content, some very interesting differences emerged between British and American respondents in our survey. American respondents’ most chosen ad characteristic was “amusing/entertaining” advertising, a classic

5

attention-getter in almost any context. The British consumers surveyed, by contrast, were more likely to focus on ads featuring a sport of interest, ranking that even above “amusing/entertaining” creative.

Three other intriguing highlights:

• British respondents were more likely than Americans to pay attention to an ad from an official sponsor—perhaps because sponsor companies have more visibility in the host country.

• American respondents were much more likely than Brits to highlight ads featuring athletes they like—suggesting the power of personalities may be stronger with the US audience.

• Relevancy of ads is an attention-getter for both British and American respondents, outranking athletes and official sponsors in both countries.

This suggests that even two countries that share a language (mostly), are culturally similar (reasonably), and have similar mobile usage characteristics can still have noticeable differences in the kinds of mobile advertising creative that best attract consumers’ attention.

6

Propensity to Interact With Mobile Ads As a final way to compare the US and UK mobile audiences, we asked consumers how often they typically responded to or interacted with ads to get more information. Sixty-two percent of British survey respondents, and 60% of American respondents, said that they interacted with ads at least sometimes, a virtual tie. However, British respondents showed a higher propensity to interact with ads frequently—32% said they did so at least daily, as compared with a still fairly impressive 25% of American respondents.

7

A Deeper Dive into the UK Mobile Olympics As the UK is the host country this year, we wanted to get a few additional insights into British consumers’ views of the mobile internet as it relates to the Olympics. A few additional questions fielded only in the UK provide that extra color.

• A resounding 78% of UK respondents would access some kind of mobile data service device if they were to attend the games in person. Unsurprisingly, of the choices we presented, 44% selected social networking as the one mobile data service they’d want to use. And indeed, the first few days of the games have already seen phenomenal amounts of tweeting, facebooking, instagramming, and all other kinds of social sharing as those lucky enough to see the games in person share that fact in real-time with friends, family, and the entire world.

• When asked about Olympics-specific apps, 67% of British respondents said they had or intended to download an app. The majority of those would do so only if the app were free, but 12% would acquire an Olympics app even if they had to pay for it.

8

• Of the 22% or so of respondents who said they’d watch video of the games on their mobile device, slightly more than half expected to do so when TV and other video outlets were unavailable. However, a healthy share of respondents expected to use mobile video in tandem with TV and PC/laptop video, too, suggesting consumers’ desire to keep up with an event where a lot is going on in different venues simultaneously.

• Finally, we asked UK mobile users about accessing Olympics content in the workplace. 71% of respondents said they would indeed be using their mobile to keep up with the games while at work, with social networking and streaming live events the leading ways that respondents cited. We’ll leave it to another study to quantify the workplace productivity impact as fans cheer on Team UK over the next two weeks.

9

Objectives and Methodology of the Olympic Study

• The purpose of this study was to identify and understand how UK and US mobile users on the Mojiva network intend to use their mobile device in relation to the 2012 Summer Olympics and to evaluate their attitudes on Olympic-related mobile advertising.

• The primary study was fielded on the Mojiva network from July 9 to July 26 and garnered 242 completes in the UK and US.

• A supplemental study with additional survey questions targeted only UK users on the Mojiva network, was fielded from July 19 to July 26 and garnered 154 completes.

About the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB United States)

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 500 leading media and technology companies that are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

About the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB United Kingdom)

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) is the trade association for digital advertising. With over 700 members, it's run for the leading media owners and agencies in the UK internet industry. Online is an exciting and fast-growing medium and our job at the IAB is to work with members to ensure marketers can identify the best role for online and the emerging mobile market, helping them engage their customers and build their brands. Through the dissemination of research and the organisation of regular events, we aim to put digital on the agenda of every marketer in the UK, acting as an authoritative and objective source for all internet advertising issues whilst promoting industry-wide best practice

About Mojiva

Mojiva is the mobile ad network that reaches more than 1.1 billion devices globally and represents 8,000 mobile publishers and apps. Through deep and open integration with all major rich media providers and ad servers, Mojiva provides ad agencies with every imaginable mobile media execution across mobile web sites, apps and devices.

Founded in May 2008 and based in New York City, Mojiva is an independent mobile ad network operating under parent company Mojiva Inc., a privately held company backed by Pelion Venture Partners, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and Shamrock Capital. Follow Mojiva on Twitter, like us on Facebook or learn more at http://www.mojiva.com.