However the study revealed that general mobile advertising knowledge in the UK has seen a 23% increase in the last year.
The IAB Agency Snapshot Study gives a real insight into the current knowledge surrounding mobile advertising and overall uptake within today’s current media landscape. The study, which for the first time, includes European data (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain), was carried out in partnership with YouGov to assess agency approaches to mobile advertising over the last year. The survey was carried out between November and December 2014 and was completed by 154 media agency employees across the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The study revealed there has been a shift in who is driving the mobile movement within media agencies, with strategists emerging as key drivers of growth. The number of respondents in the UK claiming strategists are driving the move has risen from 41% in 2013 to 53% in 2014. This suggests that mobile is becoming more mainstream with a stronger understanding across agencies.
Encouragingly, says IAB, 1 in 2 (49%) of UK media agency employees surveyed, stated that mobile is now a regular part of client proposals, rising from 38% in 2013. However mobile programmatic, brand safety and mobile privacy are topics of concern for media agencies – all of which came out on top as areas in which they felt they had the lowest level of understanding.
Nearly half, 42% of media agency employees across Europe claimed that mobile is unlocking new budgets, however a large majority (71%) claimed their mobile budget is coming from other media, such as Internet, TV, Print and Radio.
Integration will be key in 2015 with 78% of UK media agency employees claiming that mobile will be integrated into their wider agencies by the end of this year. Nearly 90% of UK media agency employees’ felt that not being able to track cross-screen campaigns was a huge barrier to mobile growth. Separately 59% of respondents felt that location-based advertising was the most exciting mobile opportunity.
IAB’s Senior Mobile Executive, Mike Reynolds said: “These studies are a great benchmarking tool for us and the wider industry to see where general mobile uptake is, as well as understand crucial barriers for both clients and agencies. It is great to see that the level of mobile understanding has increased steadily over the past six years, and with this, confidence in the channel has also increased.”
