These two generations comprise a large and growing portion of the world’s spending power.
Marketers will rely on Generation Z and Millennials to tell them how to create effective mobile ads. A new Forbes report stated that these generations will make up about $350 billion in spending power between now and 2020.
In less than 2 years, that represents a substantial amount of spending power brands will want to reach.
The Forbes report indicated that it is these generations, the “young digital natives” who will be guiding marketers. The reason is that marketers have yet to truly figure out what makes effective mobile ads.
Millennials and Generation Z do everything with their smartphones and tablets. They bring them with them wherever they go. They are a part of their work and personal lives. They’re used for getting jobs done and for play. These are the people who are shaping the digital landscape. They will use their preferences, behaviors and expectations to guide the way mobile marketing will take place.
Effective mobile ad will be those that reach these two generations and this is becoming increasingly critical.
In the Forbes report, YPulse was commissioned to poll 1,000 Millennial and Generation Z consumers. YPulse specializes in Millennial and Gen Z research. The poll was conducted in February. It revealed that 88 percnet of the respondents are seeking greater mobile creativity. They want relevant mobile marketing that will reflect their locations, activities and preferences.
They have an expectation that each of those factors will be incorporated into the mobile ads they receive. That said, the respondents said the mobile ads they were seeing had accomplished this goal in one or two areas, but never all of them.
The top highlighted factors identified by the respondents were:
• A mobile advertisement needs to offer the consumer something they can act upon right away or that they can save for a time that better suits them. Twenty eight percent said this was a critical feature.
• Twenty percent of respondents said effective mobile ads would anticipate the next thing they wanted to discover. It should be creative 
and surprising, opening them up to new products, experiences, ideas or activities. These should align well with their preferences, locations and activity patterns.
• Nineteen percent said that all effective mobile ads needed to do was reflect their preferences, locations and activity patterns.
• Eleven percent said they would be satisfied with a mobile advertisement hat was personalized enough to recognize the brands or activities, location and preferences, but not necessarily all of those things.
• Ten percent said all they needed of the ad was for it to reflect their location.
