The mobile phone is the link in the movement from a networked society to a connected one. It will, I believe, also figure prominently in the development of new approaches to behavior change, or mChange. As with other new technologies, I have found that the preconceptions of who uses cell phones for anything other than talking to people usually stretches as far as young people who text message. A new study from M:Metrics segments the mobile services market into three groups [US population in brackets] and provides some insight into the behaviors of the current user base.
The Early Adopter segment includes Web posting of mobile video, the service with the youngest age profile; dating services and men’s content services which skew heavily male; and mobile video consumption a service that skews heavily in terms of appeal to non-Caucasians [N=27.1 million].
The Internet Services segment includes mobile access to news content category with the oldest user base; financial account access which has the most educated base of subscribers; and financial and sports news access, which is heavily male. Weather and personal e-mail access are the two most popular services in this segment [N=34.6 million].
The Communications and Entertainment segment is distinguished by services such as text messaging which skews less towards non-Caucasians compared with any other service; it includes playing mobile games which has the least educated base of users; and ringtone downloads—content categories with the heaviest female skew. The large numbers of people which send text messages, take photos, or play games makes this the largest segment [N=111 million].
As you consider what strategies and tactics to use in a social marketing or health communication program for your own priority audiences, check if some of their characteristics and media usage patterns overlap with one of these segments. If they do, consider getting mobile.
Comments