Monday Mailbag

Email me your question for the Monday Mailbag (kevinh@minethatdata.com).

Today's question comes to us from Adobe, of all places (@adobemarketingcloud), where 82,000 followers were copied on this question, directed to me:

• "Mobile use exceeds web use with 28% of the time spent on social. A strategy should match this balance, right?" The question links to this article (click here).

The question, and the logic behind it, sound very, very seductive. 

Click through the article above. Go ahead, I'll wait.

What did you learn?

First of all, did you see that monthly time spent watching television was at 185 hours, while online time (desktop/laptop + mobile) was at 62 hours? So where is the argument from Adobe that a strategy should match the balance of a 3x investment in television to a 1x investment online?

See, we pick and choose arguments that fit our worldview. We conveniently ignore facts that do not support our business model (television), we exaggerate facts that cause us to earn revenue (mobile).

Now, take a look the "Share of Time Spent Using Smartphone Apps" table. Shopping is at 2%.

In other words, in terms of free time, the average person spend 247 hours a month watching television or being online. Of that time, 34 hours are spent on mobile, and 2% of that time is spent using shopping apps on mobile ... 2% of 34 hours is 0.7 hours.

Time spent with shopping apps is about 42 minutes a month.

If we must adhere to the logic of the tweet, then I should achieve marketing balance by making sure that I invest 0.7 hours of 247 hours ... 0.3% of my marketing investment ... on mobile shopping apps, with more than half of my marketing investment in television.

Right?

Now, are the folks at Adobe right? Of course they are right ... if the customer is Jennifer or especially Jasmine. If your customer is age 55 or older, then no, mobile and social are not the place to invest time or money - you're better off sending a postcard in the mail ... or advertising on television!

Every one of us, me included, conveniently leave facts out of our argument, in an effort to defend our worldview. Our challenge is to be as unbiased as we can possibly be. I'll keep working on it as well.