Young people as users of branded applications on mobile devices

Abstract

This paper analyzes the role of young consumers in the context of new communication processes arising from emerging technologies. It examines the use of mobile device applications that activate new, more complex social and communicative uses of technology. The applications for smartphones which link to commercial advertising and enable online purchases are a recent priority for communicative actors such as trademarks, banking and technology companies. In this context, this paper describes and encodes qualitatively how young users as prosumers understand, perceive and use these corporate branding applications. Research techniques were applied to four focus groups of Spanish undergraduates of Communication Studies, as they are users that show a predisposition towards an early adoption of these practices. The coding and grouping of their responses enabled us to develop a qualitative analysis of usage and interaction with trademark applications. These focus group responses also allowed us to classify such communicative practices. In conclusion, active consumers interact with commercial content, establishing social networks with the backing of the brand culture and image as a form of group cohesion. Other uses are related to entertainment and enquiries for information, but users are still reluctant to pay for products or services through their mobile devices. RESUMENEl presente trabajo analiza el papel de los jóvenes consumidores en el contexto de los nuevos procesos comunicativos que surgen de tecnologías emergentes: el uso de las aplicaciones de marca en los dispositivos móviles. Estos incorporan funcionalidades sociales y comunicativas cada vez más complejas y, entre ellas, las aplicaciones para teléfonos inteligentes que vinculan publicidad comercial y pagos, formando un campo novedoso pero de interés prioritario para distintos actores comunicativos, como son las marcas comerciales, los servicios bancarios y las propias compañías tecnológicas. En ese contexto la presente investigación describe y codifica cualitativamente cómo los usuarios entienden, perciben y utilizan, como prosumidores, las aplicaciones de marca corporativa y los pagos. Para ello se aplican técnicas de investigación en cuatro grupos focales, de edades comprendidas entre los 18 y 24 años, compuestos por jóvenes universitarios españoles estudiantes en Comunicación, como usuarios que muestran una predisposición y una adopción temprana de estas prácticas. Las respuestas de las reuniones del grupo de discusión permitieron una clasificación de las prácticas comunicativas. En conclusión, se constata una alta predisposición de estos consumidores activos por interactuar con contenidos comerciales, estableciendo redes sociales bajo el amparo de una cultura e imagen de marca, como forma de cohesión grupal. Otros usos se relacionan con el entretenimiento y la información, al tiempo que aún se muestran reticentes al pago de productos o servicios mediante el dispositivo móvil.

Exploring the attitudes and behaviour of Gen Z students towards branded mobile apps in an emerging market: UTAUT2 model extension

“…This study therefore supported the findings by Ruiz-Del-Olmo and Belmonte-Jimenez (2014) who also found that connectivity was one of the main benefits of mobile apps for the youth in Spain. In addition, Puriwat and Tripopsakul (2021) established that social influences had significant positive impacts on app users’ behavioural intention to use social media apps for business purposes.…”

“…Some of these negative attitudes included mobile branded apps being time consuming, having adverts that were annoying, high usage of data, large memory space required for apps, high pricing and updates and notifications. These findings also supported the study performed by Ruiz-Del-Olmo and Belmonte-Jimenez (2014), who also found that mobile applications were disliked due to their high usage of data, which was a financial burden on the users. In addition, Bhave et al (2013) also discovered that consumers become annoyed when an advert appeared while they were actively involved with the mobile application, particularly when they were communicating with friends or playing games (Bhave et al , 2013).…”

“…Entertainment was also highlighted as a contributing factor to the popularity of branded mobile apps by the youth in two separate studies, i.e. Potgieter (2015) in South Africa and Ruiz-Del-Olmo and Belmonte-Jimenez (2014) in Spain. This also supports Hass et al (2021, p. 368) who found that university students have positive attitudes towards gamification in mobile apps and Wut et al (2021) who recommend adding gamification to “consumption-related mobile apps to increasing usage behavior”.…”

“…The five most common factors contributing to participants deleting branded mobile applications were: Lack of storage on the smartphone, when an app is no longer useful or relevant, when an app is no longer entertaining, when an app becomes too addictive and when an app is used rarely. Ruiz-Del-Olmo and Belmonte-Jimenez (2014) also found that students who did not make use of mobile apps attributed it to the lack of data due to financial restrictions. However, this study found further reasons for young consumers to delete a mobile app, as mentioned previously.…”

System to Detect Racial-Based Bullying through Gamification

“…But in the last few years, these “whole-school” programs are being enriched by research on preventing bullying which seeks the answers in students, teachers and families (Patton et al, 2015), (Cabra and Marciales, 2015), as bullying prevention programs should be adapted to the cultural context (Olweus, 2010), make use of ICTs related to social sciences and integrate prevention procedures close to adolescent experience (Huitsing and Veenstra, 2012), such as of cell phones (Ruiz and Belmonte, 2014) and gamification strategies (Bishop, 2014; Richter et al, 2015) in school environments (Hanewinkel, 2004; Middaugh and Kahne, 2013). …”