Image: muaythaiislife.com
The Great Debate
Stereotypes of East Coasters and West Coasters have long been the material of late-night spoofs, movies, and cultural commentary. People from the West Coast brand their Eastern counterparts of being uptight and stressed out, while folks on the East Coast perceive them as having a laissez-faire approach to life. The generalizations go beyond mere attitude.
In fashion, East Coasters are generalized as being more stylish and aware of high brands in their style of dress. Whereas, West Coasters are accused of having a more free-flowing style. So lax are things in the West, in fact, the writer of an Elite Daily article even challenged West Coast men to “step their game up and increase their pace to match the New York hustle.” This is getting serious.
And these stereotypes are historically consistent, too. Do a search on it, and this veal vs. tofu burger divide has remained largely the same over the past 20 years. Really though, is there any merit to these generalizations of the attitudes and behavior of people living on the opposite sides of the country? A look at recent mobile data would lead us to believe so.
Mobile Advertising Coast-to-Coast
Sense Networks, a New York-based mobile data firm, compared East and West Coast consumers’ preferences and click-through rates (CTR) on this summer’s mobile advertising deals. What they found largely supports these attitude generalizations. According to the data, West Coasters were more likely to click on deals for wine tasting, golf, or a day at the spa to work on that tan, while East Coast consumers were more interested in eye doctor and restaurant deals.
With its new AdMatch product, Sense Networks is able to make location-based ads effective by looking not only at place, but matching it to the unique behavioral profile of users like the ones in this study. AdMatch, launched just last week, is being touted as the only ad platform to serve local ads based on real-time location, behavioral profiles and predictive analytics.
For consumers, East Coast or West Coast, what this all means is the same–targeted, more relevant, actionable advertising and deals coming your way.
The Coasts Can Agree on This
But none of this will silence the comparisons and debate. East Coasters will have their opinions on what is good by their standards, and West Coasters will have theirs. There’s one ultimate question that divides the shores that can’t be answered with mobile data: “Which coast has the better beaches?” Fortunately, we needn’t look much further than Quora for a definitive answer provided by one user:
