The consumers downloading ringtones, images and other content related to Father’s Day via mobile skewed heavily towards women, according to new figures from Myxer.

Many consumers like to download humorous or emotional content related to holidays such as Father’s Day. However, as Myxer’s results indicate, it would be wise for marketers to double check any preconceived notions as who the audience is for a particular holiday.

“We were quite surprised by how heavily the numbers skewed toward female consumption of content,” said Mike Carson, chief marketing officer of Myxer, which offers a variety of downloadable content for consumers.

Deerfield Beach, FL-based Myxer monitors all the major holidays and has noticed shifts in the typical audience for holiday-related content does.

Earlier this year, for example, Myxer saw more women downloading content around Valentine’s Day than in the past.

And, around the Christmas holiday shopping season, the audience was more evenly spread across men and women than in the past.

Target wisely
For marketers trying to reach consumers with downloadable content, this means it is important to keep in mind who your target is in terms of consumption for key holiday periods.

“If you have a preconceived mindset of who the key target is for a holiday, keep your mind open or set aside a budget to test from a target standpoint,” Mr. Carson said.

The research showed that audience for both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day skewed heavily towards female consumers. When it came to content downloads, 76.4 percent of the consumers downloading Mother’s Day content were women and 86.7 percent of those downloading Father’s Day content were women as well.

The largest age group downloading content for each holiday fell into the 25 to 34 year old group, accounting for approximately one-third of downloads for Father’s Day and Mother’s Day.

Father’s day downloads skew to a slightly older demographic, with 29 percent of the downloads coming from the 45 to 54 age group.
Myxer’s overall traffic has increased between 5 percent and 12 percent since last year, with the number of downloads increasingly at a similar rate.

Myxer provides consumers access to free media content for their mobile phones, with a catalog that contains over 10 million pieces of free and premium licensed content including music, apps, images, games and video.

Mr. Carson also pointed to the need for marketers to give themselves a long enough lead time when developing their mobile strategies for key holiday periods.

“Marketers should be focused on those and focused on them well in advance to get as much opportunity as possible,” he said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode, Mobile Marketer