Dive Brief:

• Based on a November survey, Gfk MRI has identified five distinct groups of mobile users based on their behaviors instead of age or other segmentation data. 
• At opposite ends of the mobile adoption spectrum, Mobile Embracers and Mobile Fundamentals make up the largest groups, each with about a quarter of the population. 
• The most likely groups to embrace mobile apps—Mobile Embracers and Entertainment Seekers—are also the least likely to maintain a loyalty to them. 

Dive Insight:

Market research firm GfK MRI has segmented mobile users into five groups based on their behaviors, revealing what may be a challenging conundrum for marketers wanting mobile consumers to use their apps and respond to their ads.

The five groups are Mobile Embracers, Casual Gamers, Entertainment Seekers, Info Seekers and Mobile Fundamentals. Each representing about one-quarter of the population, Mobile Embracers live and breathe mobile, the survey analysis says, while Mobile Fundamentals have smartphones, but aren’t always sure what to do with them.

About 18% of the population are Casual Gamers (often moms who play mobile games with their children), or Info Seekers (who tend to be white male sports fans and news junkies). Finally, Entertainment Seekers represent about 15% of mobile users, many of them young and single.

Mobile Embracers, Casual Gamers, and Entertainment Seekers were the most likely to embrace apps, but also proved to be their most fickle critics. Entertainment Seekers were most likely to say they “don’t stay loyal to apps for long,” and 40% of Casual Gamers said “Apps are frustrating.”

Where mobile ads are concerned, more than two-thirds of respondents in every group said mobile ads “are annoying,” including 78% of Info Seekers. And about half of the respondents in all segments complained that mobile ads tend to appear at inconvenient times.

Again, the more mobile-savvy the group, the stronger their reaction—positive or negative. Entertainment Seekers led among in their willingness to see ads in exchange for incentives, but 45% of the same group said that mobile ads “have no credibility.”

This dichotomy—in which those most likely to use mobile apps and see mobile ads are also their strongest critics—should concern marketers. Apps and ads aren’t going to go away, but as more and more people rely on smartphones, the better those apps and ads will have to be.