Entertainment App Advertising Trends in 2020

What were the ad trends for non-gaming apps in 2020? What are the best practices for ad creatives in different regions? App Growing Global gives an insight into 20 countries/regions’ advertising data and 17 global mobile advertising platforms from January to August 2020.

Table of Contents

Top 5 Reading Apps – July-August (Android)

Top 5 Entertainment Apps – July-August (Android)

Top 5 Video Apps – July-August (Android)

Top 5 Social Apps (Android)

How to localise entertainment app ad creatives

In the first half of 2020, the number of non-gaming apps dropped month by month, rebounded strongly in the second half, accounting for over 50% of the market.

Source: App Growing Global

The top 3 advertising ranking categories are shopping, entertainment, and social. In terms of advertising volume, news, entertainment, and social apps show much more ads. For example, the number of news apps only accounted for 3%, with a great advertising share of 20%.

Source: App Growing Global

Top 5 Entertainment Apps – July-August (Android)

The top entertainment advertising products are mainly music, wallpaper, and emoji apps.

New Emoji

New Emoji 2020 is published by CY Security in December 2019, Google Play free ranking in September 5, this app ranked Top 100 in 7 countries, PH: 20, MX: 55, BR: 65.

New Emoji 2020 ad creative

Source: App Growing Global

Vita Music

Vita Music is published by Liampasin in December 2016 , Google Play free ranking in September 5，this app ranked Top 100 in 14 countries, PH: 46, MY: 38, TW: 51, HK: 54.

Vita Music ad creative

Source: App Growing Global

Top 5 Social Apps (Android)

Ads of Uplive and Bigo are sweeping the world representatively, while StreamKar prefers the Southeast Asia and Middle East markets, and Mico focuses on Southeast Asia market too.

Bigo Live

Bigo Live is a live streaming social app, published by BIGO TECHNOLOGY PTE. LTD in March 2016. It advertised more than 20,000 ads in August. Google Play top grossing ranking in September 5, Bigo Live ranked Top 5 in 22 countries, US: 5, GB: 6, DE: 4, TH: 4, SG: 4, JP: 3,KR: 12, SA: 5, BR: 11.

Bigo Live ad creative

Source: App Growing Global

Uplive

Uplive is a live streaming social app, published by Asia Innovations HK Limited in May 2016. It advertised more than 10,000 ads in August. Google Play top grossing ranking in September 5，Uplive ranked Top 5 in 4 countries, US: 30, GB: 29, DE: 34, TH: 36, SG: 4, JP: 63, KR: 44, SA: 15, BR: 19.

Uplive ad creative

Source: App Growing Global

How to localise entertainment app ad creatives

Advice for advertising in Europe & North America

1. Ad creatives are mainly images and videos, and the mainstream chooses beautiful materials similar to those used by dating sites/APPs. Live streaming APPs use multi-person chats of live recordings.

2. Beauty expectations towards females in Europe and North America are diversified. For example, BBW (Big Beautiful Women) is also very popular.

3. There are about 53 million Spanish speakers in the United States, around 17% of the American population. Therefore, in addition to English, the copywriting should also cover Spanish version.

Ad creatives

Source: App Growing Global

The top 3 social platforms in USA are Youtube, Facebook, FB Messenger. The UK and Germany have large Whatsapp user base.

Source: Hootsuite, user penetration rate of various social platforms in January 2020.

Advice for advertising in the Middle East

1. The demographic structure is quite young, 60%-80% of the population is under 30 years old. Women are more willing to spend on the internet. Religion has suppressed many entertainment activities; hence their social needs are strong.

2. Middle Easterners go to work around 10am and leave around 4pm, and after 8pm is the prime time for advertising.

3. After Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr will usher in a peak of traffic, and countries begin to celebrate with long holidays.

4. When choosing images and soundtracks, pay attention to their religious culture. Elements such as wine, pigs, and crosses are not allowed. Images and text should be arranged from right to left.

Ad creatives

Source: App Growing Global

The top 3 social platforms in the Middle East are YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook/Instagram.

Source: Hootsuite, user penetration rate of various social platforms in January 2020.

Advice for advertising in Southeast Asia

1. As an emerging market, Southeast Asia has a huge population and the most downloads, among which Thailand has the highest affordability in Southeast Asia.

2. Southeast Asia’s self-produced IP is relatively weak and is deeply influenced by Japanese, Korean, and Chinese IP cultures, which create opportunities to advertise reading, video apps.

3. Southeast Asia is a large area of different religious beliefs and cultures needs to be respected. For example, Indonesia owns a large crowd of Muslims, while Vietnam and Thailand believe in Buddhism. In Thailand, people admire their royal family a lot, and aesthetically prefer shiny things.

Ad creatives

Source: App Growing Global

LINE has a large user base in Thailand, while WhatsApp is more popular in Indonesia, and the local platform Zalo has a large user base in Vietnam.

Source: Hootsuite, user penetration rate of various social platforms in January 2020.

The top 3 social platforms in Malaysia and India are YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp. The top 3 in the Philippines are Facebook, YouTube, Facebook Messenger.

Source: Hootsuite, user penetration rate of various social platforms in January 2020.

Advice for advertising in Japan & Korea

1. Japanese dislike deceptive ads, have strong copyright protection consciousness and require materials with high quality and attention to detail. They prefer simple, clean and cute animation style.

2. Japanese users value the product’s reputation and reviews. Keen to “follow the trend” materials and copies or copy writings and emphasize the popularity of the App such as the top 1 in downloads and user number, etc.

3. South Korea deeply cultivate idol culture, and the material is keen on idol endorsements, idol represents credibility.

Ad creatives

Source: App Growing Global

The top 3 social platforms in Japan are YouTube, Line, and Twitter, while local media Kakaotalk has large user base in South Korea.

Source: Hootsuite, user penetration rate of various social platforms in January 2020.

Advice for advertising in Hong Kong & Taiwan

1. Being connected with Chinese language and culture, so they are naturally the first choice for Chinese publishers put less effort on localization.

2. Avoid using literal translation of Mandarin into traditional Chinese in Hong Kong ads copies, using Cantonese is more local.

3. Taiwan’s offline promotion channels are well developed and have multiple choices. The effects of TV commercials and MRT ads are no worse than that of online channels.

4. Taiwanese are good at entertaining, and they prefer creatives with high saturation and big text.

Ad creatives

Source: App Growing Global

The top 3 social platforms in Hong Kong of China are FB, YouTube and WhatsApp, while LINE owns a large user base in Taiwan.

Source: Hootsuite, user penetration rate of various social platforms in January 2020.

Advice for advertising in Brazil

1. Brazilians love social; thus, their social entertainment apps are in great demand and growing rapidly.

2. The common language in Brazil is Portuguese, not Spanish. Brazil was a colony of Portugal thus its official language is Portuguese.

3. It’s not suggested to use purple, yellow and number 13 in ad creative, purple means sadness, yellow means despair, and “ok” is obscene.

4. Brazilians are open to nudity and pornographic culture, those any ads that target children are not allowed. Also, violence and corruption are prohibited.

Ad creatives

Source: App Growing Global

The top 3 social platforms in Brazil are YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp.

Source: Hootsuite, user penetration rate of various social platforms in January 2020.

The above report is based on global app (non-gaming) advertising strategies tracked from January to August 2020, and all data sourced from App Growing Global Intelligence. It covers 20 countries/regions such as Europe & America, Southeast Asia, Taiwan of China, Hong Kong of China, Middle East, Brazil, etc., and 17 global mobile advertising platforms including Facebook, Admob, Unity, Line Japan, Twitter, etc.

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