A new report claims that magazine ads on tablets have more “stopping power” than those appearing on e-readers like the Kindle and Kobo – and even some of their print counterparts.
The data from New York-based GfK MRI Starch Advertising indicates that 55% of U.S. consumers reading a magazine on a tablet “noted” (meaning they saw or read) an ad, compared with 41% of e-reader magazine app users. The average “noted” score for all hard copy magazine ads measured by Starch in 2010 was 53%.
The report findings are based on interviews with approximately 7,000 users of magazine apps on tablets and e-readers between May and July.
The report also suggests that consumers are more likely to interact with tablet ads than they are with their e-reader equivalents, with 23% of respondents who read a magazine ad on a tablet subsequently accessing a website via the ad, 9% viewing multiple pages of ad content, and 8% watching an embedded video.
By comparison, less than 1% of respondents who viewed a magazine ad on an e-reader took any of these actions. According to Starch, these findings might reflect the fact that ads on e-readers typically have what it described as “fewer interactive bells and whistles.”
The report also suggests that tablet advertising is capable of driving stronger engagement among users. Research found that 26% of people noting a tablet ad had a favourable opinion of the advertiser after viewing the ad, compared with 19% for e-readers. In addition, 21% of people noting a tablet ad looked for additional information about the product or service after viewing the ad, compared with 15% of people noting an e-reader ad.
A June report from the Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project found that 12% of U.S. adults owned an e-reader in May, more than twice as many who owned one of the devices in November. By comparison, 8% of U.S. adults owned a tablet device in May, up from 5% in November 2010.
Another study from GfK MRI found that magazine readership accounts for a relatively small portion of e-reader use, with only 15% of owners saying they read a magazine on their device in the past six months. Fourteen per cent of respondents said they had read a newspaper on their device in the same time period.
