Tzahi Stein, the CEO Founder of Positive Mobile, analyzes one of the hottest trends in mobile – food – whether it’s the stratospheric growth of food content publishers like Tasty, OR the fact the 42% of all In-Feed Mobile Video Ads on Positive in Q1 2017 were from food beverage marketers, and how mobile is tacking over Sensory Marketing from TV
For years, when trying to convince agencies and marketers to invest in mobile marketing campaigns, prospective clients would say that if mobile could deliver a TV-like experience, they’d invest even more in mobile video.
Well, it looks like that time has come.
Over the last 18 months, mobile has become the platform for food, led by food-driven content plays like Buzzfeed’s Tasty, which now has over 500 million monthly users – TV-like scale, as well as Tastemade and Time Inc’s recently launched Well Done.
And this trend extends to mobile video advertising, too. At Positive Mobile, 42% of all advertising run via our offering in Q1 2017 – In-feed Mobile Video Ads – where from food and beverage marketers (including restaurants).
Being a data-driven person, I wanted to find some data to support this trend. After all, digital marketing is being driven by data today. I ran across research from University of Michigan Marketing Professor Aradhna Krishna, a pioneer in the field of sensory marketing. Professor Krishna believes that evoking an imagined food smell through a visual cue increases the consumer’s desire for that food as well as their subsequent consumption of it.
From a research study conducted by Professor Krishna and published in the University of Michigan News, experiencing the above mentioned ‘visual cues’ through a mobile device also has an important impact. A series of studies suggest that when one person sees a self-indulgent food on a touch screen, he or she has the automatic imagery (also known as mental simulation) of reaching out and picking it up. The touch screen is consistent with this naturally occurring mental simulation and facilitates it—increasing the choice of hedonistic food.
So based on Professor Krishna’s research, one could say that for sensory products, mobile advertising is even better than TV. This helps explain why 42% percent of all advertising via Positive Mobile’s In-Feed Mobile Video in Q1 2017 was food-related.
For more trends in In-Feed Mobile Video Advertising from Q1 2017, please check out our infographic below:
