Thursday Buzz: We’re OK With Ads on Our Apps

What’s better for consumers: an app that costs $2 to download, or one where you pay nothing but get hit with the occasional ad?

According to a new poll  (opens in a new tab) commissioned by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), it’s the latter. The Zogby Analytics poll of 1,015 adults found that 58 percent of respondents would rather have ad-supported apps than pay for those without ads. Just 8 percent of users would pay to re-download all those apps if they didn’t have ads.

The study also noted that two-thirds of consumers want to choose the ads that play on their devices, and (in a separate question) two-thirds want similar controls over data collection.

In an interview with CMSWire  (opens in a new tab), DAA Executive Director Lou Mastria said lessons from the study will prove helpful as the association brings its ongoing “Your Ad Choices” campaign to mobile devices.

“As we move to a mobile environment, we want to assure the groundwork we laid in the desktop environment will play well in the mobile environment,” Mastria said. “The experience we enable for consumers at a rate of a trillion times a month globally right now is repeatable, reliable, and is premised on giving them choices, [giving] them a heads-up that data is being collected to present relevant ads.”

S’more Ideas Like This, Please

In case you missed National S’mores Day  (opens in a new tab), it’s OK—there are a lot of days on the calendar, and we understand if you miss a couple here or there.

But you know who didn’t miss that day? The state of Indiana. In August, Indiana State Parks and Reservoirs started publishing a series of posts  (opens in a new tab) highlighting the state’s many parks, with the help of some marshmallowy, chocolately friends.

Pretty sweet, right? If you agree, check out this interview  (opens in a new tab) with the agency’s Ginger Murphy by Stone Soup Creative’s Julia Reich. Smart stuff on Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog.

Other Notable Links

Start fighting over invites: Google’s new email reinvention, Inbox, is here, and you have to request an invite to try it out  (opens in a new tab).

Careful where you click: Microsoft is warning of serious malware issues involving rogue Microsoft Office files  (opens in a new tab).

Beware of the committee opinion echo chamber, warns Velvet Chainsaw Consulting’s Jeff Hurt  (opens in a new tab).