• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, August 26, 2022

Marketers try very hard to figure out when consumers are most open to tailored product offers.  

Here’s a clue: When they’re on their smartphones. 

Yes, people unconsciously prefer customized goods and services when they’re engrossed in their phones, according to a new study from the University of Florida. 

Consumers have very private and personalized feelings toward their phones. And they are more likely to express their unique selves more on a phone than they would on a computer.

The findings suggest that companies should change what they offer to consumers depending on device. In activating self-expression, the smartphone alters a range of behaviors, including how people respond to political polls. 

“When you use your phone, your authentic self is being expressed to a greater extent,” says Aner Sela, a professor in UF’s Warrington College of Business and so-author of the study with Camilla Song, an assistant professor at City University of Hong Kong. “That affects the options you seek and the attitudes you express,” 

The findings were published on August 3 in the Journal of Marketing Research. 

Smartphones bring people to a psychological state known as private self-focus. And this affects a variety of behaviors. 

“People with high levels of private self-focus tend to be more independent in the attitudes that they express. They conform less,” Sela said. “When they make choices, they tend to choose based on privately or deeply held beliefs, preferences or tastes and they’re less influenced by social contexts.”

The researchers conducted five experiments with undergraduate students and online respondents. The goal was to determine whether smartphones could encourage enough private self-focus to change behavior.

The answer was yes: People using smartphones were much more likely to prefer unique items instead of popular ones, and to choose products that they were told had been tailored to their personality compared to when they used a computer. 

But this doesn’t happen with just any phone. 

“With a borrowed phone, it doesn’t feel like you’re in your own little bubble,” Sela says. “What we find is the use of smartphone and its activation of private self-focus is really unique to a personal device.”

Now email marketers have long been aware of the importance of mobile — that’s why they design emails for smartphone screens.  

Last year, 43% of all holiday purchasers were made on smartphones — $88 billion worth, according to a study by Adobe. 

Gen Zers especially love mobile—75% use their smartphones to buy things, compared to 69% of millennials, according CM Group,

Knowing all this, brands should offer hyper-personalized offers based on behavior, demographics—and device.