60% Indians find mobile advertising most annoying: nanu survey

Mobile VoIP app nanu has unveiled the outcome of a targeted survey among a group of Gen X, Gen Y and Millennials from India using smartphones, with diverse work profiles. Amounting to a total sample size of 3735, 60 per cent of the respondents are annoyed with mobile advertising and marked the adverts as most annoying and obtrusive. However, banners still hold some preference for mobile users due to its unforced nature since approximately 52 per cent of the respondents have rated banners as least annoying, while more than 55 per cent respondents believe pop-ups and video adverts as the most annoying form of mobile advertising.

As any mode of advertising focuses on two factors – increase sales and brand building, mobile advertising in its present form fails to address either of them as indicated by the outcome of the survey. It reveals that even though 46 per cent of respondents may click intentionally on banner adverts, but 80 per cent still avoid clicking on pop-ups and video adverts. Moreover, about 75 per cent of the respondents indicate their doubts about making any purchase decision from mobile advertising.

Commenting on the findings of the survey, Martin Nygate, Founder & CEO, nanu, said, “The findings of the survey clearly highlight the ineffectiveness of the existing modes of advertising that brands are adopting, due to its intrusive nature. Increasingly, this invasive side of mobile advertising is adding up to its own plight by pushing mobile phone users to resort to using ad blocking software. It’s the present form of mobile advertising that eradicates all the smartness of our smartphones.”

“We believe that mobile advertising needs to be completely non-intrusive and infused with the right set of analytics to ensure enough value proposition for both users and brands,” added Nygate.

Mobile advertising is today the core of any brand’s digital marketing media strategy and marketers are aggressively looking at options to ensure the right visibility for the brand, thereby enhancing brand recall for the products and services. The outcome of the survey indicates the status quo of the mobile advertising segment, leading to annoyed and irritated consumers coming at the cost of brands’ advertising budget for mobile.

This survey from nanu is a first of its kind to evaluate how mobile advertising has impacted smartphone users in India. It was conducted from April 27 to 29, 2016. The survey was carried out across all the 29 states in India covering all the important metros and non-metros. Over 3,735 smartphone users from India using mobile internet were surveyed. Out of the total users, male users from both metros and non-metros constituted 68 per cent and female users constituted 32 per cent, who responded on the survey. As far as the states are concerned, the highest number of participation was from the northern part of the country at 39 per cent respondents, followed by southern part of India at 33 per cent, western India was third at 17 per cent and standing last was eastern India at 11 per cent.

Developed for the emerging markets, nanu utilises proprietary ultra-low bandwidth VoIP technology and an advert sponsored free call business model to provide high quality free calls to everyone, everywhere, even on 2G. nanu is currently available on Google Android and Apple iOS. nanu is a Singapore-based startup founded by a father-son team of Martin and Daniel Nygate.