Ad Age reports that a new global study, “Wireless Works: Exploring New Brand Connections,” from Omnicom Group’s BBDO Worldwide and Proximity Worldwide surveyed more than 3,000 mobile phone owners. The purpose of the study was to “better understand how consumers interact with their phone,” according to a BBDO spokesman.
Fourteen percent of the world’s cell phone users report that they have stopped in the middle of a sex act to answer a ringing wireless device. The highest percentage was found in Germany and Spain, where 22% of users interrupted sex to answer their cell phones; the lowest was in Italy, where only 7% reported doing so. In the U.S., 15% say they practice cell phone interruptus.
The survey also found that 78% of respondents have their cell phones in reach 16 or more hours per day. In Russia, 89% have their phone on for long hours, while 75% keep their phone on most of the day in the U.S.
The findings arrive as the wireless industry is aggressively ramping up its effort to promote the cell phone as a content- and advertising-delivering device to potentially rival that of TV or the Internet.
