27 per cent of UK Marketers have “No Idea” About Mobile Privacy

Privacy copy27 per cent of UK media agency employees have “no idea” how to comply with mobile privacy laws and guidelines, while 22 per cent are equally clueless regarding brand safety on mobile.

These figures come from the Agency Snapshot Study by the IAB, which nonetheless suggested that general mobile advertising knowledge in the UK has seen an increase of 23 per cent in the last year.

The research, carried out in partnership with YouGov, aimed to assess agency approaches to mobile advertising over the last year, and covered agencies in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

According to the survey, strategists are emerging as the key drivers of mobile growth within media agencies, with 53 per cent of employees citing them as the most mobile-focused within their agencies, and suggesting that mobile is becoming increasingly mainstream across media agencies.

49 per cent of UK agency employees stated that mobile is now a regular part of client proposals, up from 38 per cent in 2013. However, mobile programmatic, brand safety and mobile privacy all rated low for the levels of understanding in agency staff.

42 per cent of agency employees across Europe claimed that mobile is unlocking new budgets, although 71 per cent claimed that mobile budget is being drawn from other media, such as TV, radio or internet.

90 per cent of UK respondents felt that cross-screen tracking was the major barrier to mobile growth, while 59 per cent felt location-based advertising was the most exciting opportunity mobile offered.

“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,” said Mike Reynolds, senior mobile executive at the IAB. “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.”