‘Member the good old days when ma and pa wouldn’t even think of answering their phone during Thanksgiving dinner? Neither do we. Digital engagement specialists will tell you that not only are those days totally over, but holidays are great opportunities to launch mobile marketing initiatives. In fact, Thanksgiving 2012 might just be remembered as the year mobile shopping was invited to the dinner table.
According to a Harris Interactive survey, 28 percent of those who own a smartphone or tablet plan on shopping from their mobile devices on Thanksgiving. Harris Interactive surveyed more than 2,000 adults on behalf of Digitas. That number is nearly doubled from the percentage who said they’d be mobile shopping in a similar survey from last year. Not surprisingly, a chunk of the increase in mobile shopping is being driven by students.
“Digitas found that nearly 40 percent of students plan to shop from their phones on Thanksgiving and more than 20 percent of students said they would actually forego going to a Thanksgiving meal if they knew in advance they couldn’t use their phones,” Mashable reports.
The depressing moniker of “Mobile Thursday” has even been slapped on Thanksgiving by the folks at Digitas, who argue that the day formerly known as Thanksgiving could provide unique marketing opportunities for brands.
“With more consumers shopping on their devices, brands are being provided with more mobile moments to address and create impact — even during a time of turkey, football and family,” Chia Chen, senior vice president of Mobile Practice Lead for Digitas, said in a statement.
Pumpkin pie and pilgrim purists can should relax this year, though. Thanksgiving as we know and love it isn’t headed for the endangered species list thanks to mobile commerce. While mobile device shopping has seen a significant bump, online shopping is still king. A full 76 percent of those surveyed said they still find shopping from a computer to be easier. Tablet and smartphone shopping is going to have to get a lot less glitchy and more user-friendly before it poses a serious Black Friday type of threat.
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