Mobile Advertising Applications: Spanish Teenagers’ Knowledge, Attitudes and Motives of Use

Abstract

Mobile advertising has gained momentum among advertisers during the last years becoming an emergent sector in nowadays advertising practise. As a consequence of this advertisers´ interest – and also the dynamism of the market – advertisers have been experimenting with quiet of strategies and tools – from SMS and MMS to Bluetooth or QR Codes – as a means of achieving a better effectiveness while developing their marketing communications. Mobile advertising applications are one of the last of such tools that advertisers can use within mobile phones. The increasing growth of consumer’s use of mobile applications seems to assure quite a good performance of this advertising tool. Despite this, previous expectations not achieved when using other mobile advertising tools – as well as the evolving role of consumer behaviour within the medium – suggest to be cautious on mobile advertising applications´ effectiveness. This exploratory paper has as a main objective to answer some research questions that allow us to detect Spanish consumers´ attitudes and perceptions of mobile applications in general – as well as mobile advertising applications – to evaluate the interest of such a tool as a means of marketing communications.