Unlocking the power of lock-screen: One view at a time

The 2023 Mobile Marketing Handbook, a guide to mobile marketing in India in the year 2023, discusses the rise of emerging channels, the growth of mobile game advertising, and the need for brands to create meaningful mobile experiences for their audience. Launched by InMobi, the report takes a deep dive into the importance of enabling instant discovery and the need for brands to take a radical approach in light of recent changes in data privacy regulations. The handbook discusses two key points that brands need to focus on – leveraging the power of the smartlock screen and creating innovative and immersive experiences to engage consumers. It is designed to empower marketers and help them revolutionise their mobile marketing strategies. The handbook also highlights the importance of the mobile economy in India and the adoption of the smartphone's smartlock screen as a new surface for content consumption.

The report takes a deep dive into the massive growth of the mobile economy in India, the adoption of the smartphone’s lock screen, and the emergence of the one-click consumer. It points out that out of 749 million internet users in 2020 in India, 744 million used mobile to access the online world. That number has grown massively and continues to do so. In 2021, Indians spent a third of their waking hours on mobile.

In India, mobile devices have become the go-to means of accessing information, entertainment, shopping, and staying connected. As a result, people see an abundance of content and have grown to have extremely high expectations from this content. They seek immediate access to everything, and this trend has created an opportunity for a new form of content consumption. This content experience captures attention and inspires immediate action, fulfilling the viewer’s needs and igniting engagement at that very moment. Such content is seen on the smart lock screen.

The traditional lock screen was a passive surface, where the smartphone user could only find routine information such as notifications, time, weather, and date or access their camera, at the most. However, with Indians looking at their lock screens more than 50 times a day, it presented over 50 opportunities to show content or experiences that interest them with just one click. Thus, Glance turned the lock screen into a smart lock screen – a surface for discovering the internet, consuming content in one's preferred language, and engaging with such content, including videos, which saw a 45% lift in consumption in 2022 compared to 2021.

According to Vasuta Agarwal, Chief Business Officer, Consumer Platform Advertising, InMobi, being on the lock screen is a significant responsibility, given its newfound popularity.

“While the humble smartphone lock screen has recently been catapulted into stardom, being on the lock screen is a massive responsibility. Glance takes this very seriously by ensuring that anything that goes onto the lock screen is privacy compliant and meets high aesthetic standards. Glance content and experiences are not consumer-generated but rather curated through partnerships with premium and trusted developers or media companies,” she says.

The advent of one-click experiences

Users are flooded with content of various types. The challenge is to remain eye-catching and memorable. This can be addressed by relevance, personalisation, seamlessness, and freshness.

In 2022, Glance found a 55% increase in Indians sharing the content they see on the smart lock screen. This shows that people are interested in the personalised content they see on their smartphone’s very first screen.

Telling your brand’s story on the smart lock screen

Brands are constantly looking for new ways to engage and acquire customers. The smart lock screen provides a remarkably refreshing tool that opens a plethora of possibilities. Glance enables brands to unlock true customer lifetime value in these times of shorter attention spans.

The report explores the capabilities of the smart lock screen to address contemporary marketing obstacles, allowing brands to move beyond superficial measurements and achieve authentic interaction with customers. The primary concern is how marketers can facilitate consumer engagement and participation, and seamlessly integrate themselves into the hyperconnected consumer’s daily lives. As consumer preferences evolve and marketing challenges persist, it is essential to adopt a fresh approach that utilises the unexplored potential of the mobile front page. Advertisers should consider a new strategy to tackle these challenges effectively.

In this digital whirlwind, the report points out, the mobile’s smart lock screen holds the promise to be the game-changer in bringing inspiring content right to the fingertips of hyperconnected netizens. Through the smart lock screen, brands can #DoTheBrandNew while fulfilling their full-funnel objectives.

Successful campaigns

The report features some of the biggest names in the business that have leveraged the smart lock screen and achieved their marketing goalson Glance. The smart lock screen can enable brands to not only engage audiences with compelling messages on an innovative platform, but also become a part of the user’s everyday routine, shape conversations and deliver conversions on mobile’s latest smart surface.

Worth mentioning is the successful campaign on Glance by Škoda on the launch of the Škoda Kushaq. Its launch in India’s fragmented automobile market required an innovative solution that could cut through all the digital clutter. Being present on the smart lock screen, the brand achieved 1.28% CTR, among other key brand awareness metrics.

Škoda wooed auto enthusiasts – men and women – across India at the first point of interaction with their smart lock screens. The brand delivered vivid visuals on the lock screen, each with an interactive CTA. The campaign encouraged them to register for test drives on the brand site, an action they could take seamlessly right from their smart lock screens through just one simple click.

Another successful campaign was that of upGrad, which aimed to position itself as a leader in specialisation courses, tying the relevance of data science to modern-day cricket. One of the primary goals was to leverage the IPL and connect with millions of cricket fans. Pairing cricket and data science and hooking netizens instantly, upGrad gave cricket fans information on teams, players, and matches, while also promoting their data science courses. This unlikely pairing of data science and cricket resulted in an entertaining series: The Data Scientwist. With this campaign, the brand scored big with 30 million video views and achieved its top-funnel objectives.

Coca-Cola wanted to empower audiences to have a memorable Diwali during last year's festive season. Coca-Cola’s special edition figurine bottles were showcased on an immersive Glance experience unit. The creatives uniquely reflected India’s various cultural nuances, garnering instant attention.

Navigating the Shift Towards Privacy-First Mobile Advertising

The report looks at how marketers are attempting to challenge the current scenario and adopt privacy-first advertising practices, while focusing on building relevant experiences on mobile. Mobile ad spending in India increased YoY by 35.9% in 2021, and statistics showed that the share of ad spends on mobile in India would account for 78% of total digital media spends in the country, by 2023. Mobile advertising is going through a massive shift with increasing focus on customer privacy and data regulations, prompting advertisers to rethink their strategies. As time spent on mobile shoots up, advertisers have been concentrating on creating distinctive contextual experiences by better knowing their consumers without impacting their individual privacy.

This new era of mobile advertising thus puts the focus on innovative surfaces that can aid the seamless discovery of content, keeping in mind the emerging online behavior. Enter, the smart lock screen, which stands to eliminate the barrier that brands face in accessing and engaging with target audiences.