Mobile Technology and Advertising

Introduction

Special issue of the Journal of Advertising; Deadline 20 May 2021

INTEREST CATEGORY: MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
POSTING TYPE: CALLS: JOURNALS
Author: Stefan Bernritter

JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING
SPECIAL SECTION CALL FOR PAPERS

Mobile Technology and Advertising

Guest Editors:

Stefan Bernritter, Shintaro Okazaki, Douglas West
King’s Business School, King’s College London, UK

Manuscripts are currently being solicited for an upcoming Special Section of the Journal of Advertising (JA) dedicated to Mobile Technology and Advertising.

BACKGROUND

The evidence suggests that around 5 billion people worldwide have mobile devices and that close to 80% of all adults in advanced economies own a smartphone (Pew Research Center 2019). Not surprisingly, the evidence suggests more than 50% of all global internet traffic is accounted for by mobile phones (Statista 2019) and advertisers spend about two-thirds of their digital advertising budget on mobile advertising (eMarketer 2019).

Mobile technology offers advertisers not only an ever-growing global audience of “alwayson” smartphone, wearable, or smart speaker users, but also instantaneous access to their contextual information, e.g., location, environmental, and behavioral data. This information is increasingly being used to apply novel targeting and creative strategies and to develop new forecasting models. The available evidence suggests there is widespread dissemination and broad acceptance of mobile technology in the marketplace, as well as very promising opportunities for advertisers to engage with their customers in novel ways. Nevertheless, the topic of mobile technology’s impact on the advertising business remains largely under researched. For example, in the past, JA has published only a handful of papers that have touched on the topic (e.g., Baek and Yoo 2018; Okazaki, Li, and Hirose 2009; Peters, Amato, and Hollenbeck 2007).

Academics and practitioners suggest that exposure to mobile advertising and the creation of user generated content work differently than in nonmobile online media (e.g., Grewal and Stephen 2019; Melumad et al. 2019). Yet, our understanding of the workings and limits of advertising is still very much grounded in theory from the Web 2.0 era given publishing time-lags, without fully accounting for the complexities of the mobile advertising landscape. This is also reflected by comments from industry, indicating that new contextual insights such as location data are among the most misunderstood areas in marketing (Adweek 2018) with advertisers still struggling to harness insights effectively (Forbes 2019). Additionally, past special issues in major advertising journals were mainly situated in the pre-smartphone era (e.g., Okazaki 2007; Precourt 2009) or limited their scope to mobile media (e.g., Ford 2017).

The aim of this Special Section is to address gaps and extend this body of knowledge by taking a broader and more current approach to these newly emerged complexities.

The special section seeks high quality submissions that will be of lasting use to the discipline. In light of the breadth of these complexities, we encourage submissions that take a multidisciplinary perspective on mobile technologies in advertising as well as collaborations between academia and practice. We welcome a broad variety of paper types, including empirical work, methodological papers, and thought-leading conceptual work. The list of possible topics for this Special Section includes, but is not limited to:

  • App adoption and promotion
  • Augmented reality in mobile advertising
  • Avoidance of mobile advertising
  • Brand safety and mobile advertising
  • Creativity in mobile advertising
  • Cultural differences in mobile advertising efficacy
  • Engagement with mobile advertising
  • Ethical considerations in mobile advertising
  • Hyper targeting
  • Mobile advertising and the Internet of Things
  • Mobile gaming and advertising
  • Location targeting
  • New contextual factors affecting advertising efficacy
  • Media multitasking in a mobile context
  • New personalization strategies in mobile advertising
  • Smart mobile assistants
  • The role of 5G for mobile advertising
  • The role of advertising for in-app purchases and app subscription models
  • The workings and limits of mobile advertising
  • Spill over effects of mobile advertising into other channels

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS

Please follow submission and format guidelines for the Journal of Advertising found at http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ujoa20/current. Original Research Articles and Literature Reviews are 12,000 words and Research Notes are 6,000 words maximum (including references, tables, figures, and appendices).

Submit manuscripts through ScholarOne, at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ujoa, during May 1-20, 2021. Be sure to select “SPECIAL SECTION: Mobile Technology and Advertising,” and indicate submission type in the cover letter, whether an Original Research Article, Literature Review or Research Note. Also note that:

  • All articles will undergo blind peer review by at least two reviewers.
  • Authors will be notified no later than August 2021 on the preliminary decision over their manuscript for the next round of review.
  • The anticipated date for publication of the Special Section is Summer 2022

For additional information regarding the Special Section, please contact the guest editors at: jamobilespecialissue@gmail.com

REFERENCES

Adweek (2018), “How Brands Are Getting More Sophisticated at Using Location Data,” https://www.adweek.com/digital/how-brands-are-getting- more-sophisticated-at-using-location-data/.

Baek, Tae Hyun, and Chan Yun Yoo (2018), “Branded App Usability: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Prediction of Consumer Loyalty,” Journal of Advertising, 47 (1), 70-82.

eMarketer (2019), “Breaking Down Mobile Video Ad Spending: Video Remains the Only Digital Ad Format that Isn’t Majority Mobile,” https://www.emarketer.com/content/breaking-down-usdigital- video-ad-spending.

Forbes (2019), “How Marketing Teams Unlock the Value of Location Data,” https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultalbot/2019/11/15/how-marketing-teams-unlock-the-value-of-location-data/.

Ford, John B. (2017), “What do we Know About Mobile Media and Marketing?,” Journal of Advertising Research, 57 (3), 237-38.

Grewal, Lauren, and Andrew T. Stephen (2019), “In Mobile We Trust: The Effects of Mobile Versus Nonmobile Reviews on Consumer Purchase Intentions,” Journal of Marketing Research, 56 (5), 791-808.

Melumad, Shiri, J. Jeffrey Inman, and Michel Tuan Pham (2019), “Selectively Emotional: How Smartphone Use Changes User-Generated Content,” Journal of Marketing Research, 56 (2), 259-75.

Okazaki, Shintaro (2007), “From the Guest Editor: Special Issue on Mobile Advertising Issues and Challenges,” Journal of Interactive Advertising, 7 (2), 1-2.

Okazaki, Shintaro, Hairong Li, and Morikazu Hirose (2009), “A Study of Mobile Advertising in Japan,” Journal of Advertising, 38 (4), 63-77.

Peters, Cara, Christie H. Amato, and Candice R. Hollenbeck (2007), “An Exploratory Investigation of Consumers’ Perceptions of Wireless Advertising,” Journal of Advertising, 36 (4), 129-45.

Pew Research Center (2019), “Smartphone Ownership Is Growing Rapidly Around the World, but Not Always Equally,” https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/02/05/smartphone-ownershipis- growing-rapidly-around-the-world-but-not-always-equally/.

Precourt, Geoffrey (2009), “The Promise of Mobile,” Journal of Advertising Research, 49 (1), 1-2.

Statista (2019), “Mobile Internet Traffic as Percentage of Total Web Traffic in August 2019, by Region,” https://www.statista.com/statistics/306528/share-of-mobile-internet-traffic-in-globalregions/.

TOPICS

The submission deadline is: May 20, 2021

Editor-in-Chief
Shelly Rodgers
University of Missouri
United States