Warc, 22 September 2014
NEW YORK: Consumers travelling on packed subway trains are
about twice as likely to make a mobile purchase compared to those on
non-crowded trains, a new academic study has revealed.
The report, called "Mobile Crowdsensing", was
conducted by researchers from the New York University Stern School of Business,
Temple University and Sichuan University in Chengdu, China.
The researchers worked with an unnamed major Asian telecom
provider, which monitored users in transit while texting them promotions.
The telecom provider's data also pinpointed how many mobile
users were on a train at any given time, and the research showed that users
responded more to mobile promotions as the number of passengers increased.
Specifically, the research found purchase rates measured
2.1% when a train had a density of two people per square metre, but this rose
to 4.3% when the crowd density increased to five people per square metre.
This increased engagement with mobile devices was consistent
during peak and off-peak times as well as on weekdays and weekends.
Professor Anindya Ghose, co-director of Stern's Center for
Business Analytics, said this type of "mobile immersion" was caused
by a psychological need to cope with the loss of personal space on crowded
trains and that the findings could be of benefit for marketers.
"Our research suggests that crowding on trains is a
unique marketing environment in which mobile promotions are seen as welcome
relief," he said.
However, he told the Wall Street Journal that the
effectiveness of mobile ads could decline if commuters found themselves
packed-in "like sardines", as they often can be on trains in cities
like Tokyo.
Data sourced from NYU Stern, Wall Street Journal; additional
content by Warc staff
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