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People have been going to the movies for more than 100 years. Now the smartphone and the tablet computer are making it easier to do so.
A new study by mobile ad server Greystripe, a unit of ValueClick, indicates that consumers are using the technology to decide what films to see and when to see them. Per Greystripe, 65% of smartphone users and 67% of iPad users find out about new movies from advertising, whether on their devices or elsewhere. About half (52% of smartphone users, 44% of iPad) decide what to see based on those ads. The mobile ads that most intrigue them (56% of smartphone users and 45% of iPad users) are trailers. Checking movie times is the entertainment activity most frequently undertaken by mobile device users (46% of smartphone users, 37% of iPad users), though the survey indicates that relatively few of them acutally buy tickets via the devices (smartphones, 15%; iPads, 13%). The research, conducted in November 2011, surveyed 248 smartphone and 298 iPad users. Results have a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. The survey did not ask how many users turn off their devices before the movie starts.
