Today, 68% of Canadians own a smartphone, up 13% from last year, according to a new report.
The report comes from With Growth Comes Change: The Evolving Canadian Mobile Landscape, produced by Catalyst and GroupM Next and presented last week at the IAB Canada Engage conference.
For the past few years mobile has been on the mind of Rachel Giatras, our Media Director and Digital Media Strategist. “We’re noticing in most cases, more than half of campaign site traffic comes from mobile, be it through search, direct browsing, social, video or display."
“It’s more important than ever to make sure mobile becomes an extension of our digital, and even our traditional media strategies. And we push ourselves and our clients to make sure that mobile experience is as seamlessly pleasant as possible, from the first click-through to landing on that mobile responsive page.”
Smartphones aren’t just being used out of home anymore. The study noted an increase in use at home, especially with millennials (18 to 24-year-olds).
The 25 to 34 and 45 to 54 demos showed the biggest increase in smartphone penetration. Across all demographics though, the report showed decreased “on the go” usage over last year. The report speculates that the decline is due to people’s frustrations with battery life, screen size and data limits, in that order.
Sam Karikas, our Social Media Manager and Senior Writer maintains that the challenge is to be adaptable. "Integrating mobile seamlessly is about the user experience but at the outset, like anything else you need to write for the audience first, then the avenue. On mobile that means knowing when, where and how to speak to people in different settings; whether in-app (like on Facebook), mobile ads or sponsored content."
Posted by David Bellerive. David is Vice President of Creative and Interactive for the Phoenix Group.