As video consumption increases and viewing devices vary, consumers are still using televisions most often to watch video, according to The Evolving Video Landscape study released by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). So should ad buyers take back those digital dollars they robbed from TV budgets? Not necessarily. Consumers are increasingly using televisions like iPads, for social media, music and web browsing.
Consumers are watching more video than they have in the past, across a variety of platforms. One-third of U.S. adults online (34%) say they watch more video content today than they did a year ago. Viewing of television video programming is up 28%, with consumers citing convenience and the appeal/variety of programming as the top factors for increased viewing. Viewing of content on portable devices has also increased, with 40% watching more on those devices today than a year ago.
Many consumers (66%) who are watching video content on television are simultaneously using other consumer electronics (CE) devices. This behavior is more prevalent among younger consumers, as 85% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 70% of 25- to 34-year-olds multitask with another device while watching video on a television. U.S. adults online report watching some type of video content an average of 3.2 hours a day, five days per week.
Televisions continue to be the most commonly used device for watching video but other devices are gaining in popularity. HDTVs are the most prevalent devices used for video viewing, used by two-thirds (66 percent) of U.S. adults online. Computers are also commonly used to watch video, with 62 percent using a laptop to watch video and 55% using a desktop. One-third (33%) of consumers are using their smartphones to watch video content, and 17% are using their tablets.
“Consumers are watching more video than they have in years past and they are seeking devices and technologies that deliver a quality video and audio experience,” said Shawn DuBravac, CEA’s chief economist and director of research. “However, younger consumers accustomed to multitasking are defining new video behaviors as they watch video content across multiple platforms, on their own schedule, all while interacting socially on their devices with their friends.”
Televisions have also emerged as a device that can do more than just play video. Among consumers using televisions to watch video content, nearly half (47%) also use their sets for other purposes. One in three (34%) consumers who use a television to watch video also use their set to listen to music, and one in five (21%) uses a television to listen to audio. Usage also varies by age and the type of display owned. Younger consumers, those under age 25, rely on their TVs more for music, social media, going on the Web and communicating. Consumers with Internet-enabled TVs use their displays in a number of ways as well: 47% listen to music, 28% use social media, 26% surf the Web and 23% view photos.
Future television purchases will be based on better picture quality and larger screen sizes as consumers will continue to seek the latest innovations in the market. Almost half (48%) of consumers planning to purchase a TV in the next 12 months will be replacing an aging, obsolete or broken set. However, half (51%) desire improved picture quality in a new display and half (50%) want a larger screen size. One in four (24%) consumers with intentions to purchase a TV over the next year expect to purchase a 3DTV; 21% plan to purchase an OLED display; and a quarter of consumers (25%) plan to purchase an Internet-enabled TV. While stated purchase intentions do not always translate to transactions, the study clearly shows many consumers have their eyes fixed on newer TV technologies.
“Easy access to the Web makes TVs more versatile, allowing us to stay connected, informed and entertained,” said DuBravac. “In the future, new technologies, like OLED and 3D, will continue to improve the viewer experience, and Internet-enabled sets will fulfill consumers’ desires to be connected.”
The Evolving Video Landscape Study (April 2012) was conducted between February 22 and March 2, 2012. It was designed and formulated by CEA Market Research, the most comprehensive source of sales data, forecasts, consumer research and historical trends for the consumer electronics industry. Please cite any information to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)®. The complete study is available free to CEA member companies at members.CE.org. Non-members may purchase the study at the CEA Store.
IAB Analysis: Digital Media Vital Influence on Consumer Electronics Purchases
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released “The Path to Consumer Electronics Purchases,” an in-depth analysis revealing that an interplay of media buys—including digital—is necessary to effectively influence people who are intending to purchase consumer electronics.
Examining consumers who said that they preferred to buy consumer electronics in “Discount Stores,” “Specialty Stores” or on the “Internet” showed that all three groups are influenced by a variety of media, over-indexing against the U.S. average on internet advertising and social media across the board. In fact, among the mass media, internet advertising is second only to broadcast television networks in influence, surpassing magazines, newspapers, direct mail and radio.
“Broadcast, cable, newspapers, and other media certainly play a role in influencing shoppers seeking consumer electronics, but the diversity of media it takes to truly reach buyers is eye-opening,” said Sherrill Mane, Senior Vice President, Research, Analytics, and Measurement, IAB. “A close look at the findings reveals that digital is a key part of the ad buy puzzle when it comes to selling electronics. Most consumers who are in the market for HDTVs, home audio set-ups and the like are clearly a tech savvy group, and that fact needs to be kept top-of-mind when trying to reach them as they consider their next major purchase.”
Additional findings include:
- Coupons — With “Specialty Store” electronics shoppers leading the pack (69%), all three groups over-indexed on declaring email coupons to be a compelling retail motivator (“Internet” 68% vs. “Discount Store” 62% vs. U.S. population 60%). Web coupons were also cited as a strong driver among all three, headed by “Internet” electronics shoppers (65%), with the other two groups over-indexing as well (“Specialty Store” 61% vs. “Discount Store” 56% vs. U.S. population 53%).
- Online Searching — Ad inserts are more likely to trigger an online search among “Specialty Store” (24%) and “Discount Store” (23%) electronics purchases, versus the general public (21%), and “Internet” buyers (19%). Newspaper is a much stronger search trigger for “Specialty Store” electronic shoppers (42%). After searching, all three over-index on being likely to communicate with others via social media (“Internet” 28% vs. “Discount Store” 25% vs. “Specialty Store” 24%) compared to the average U.S. consumer (21%).
- Research Before Purchase — “Internet” electronics shoppers are much more likely to research products online before purchasing in a store, when compared to other shoppers (“Internet” 62% vs. “Specialty Store” 46% vs. “Discount Store” 36%).
- QR Codes — “Internet” and “Discount Store” electronics purchasers are more inclined to have downloaded QR Code apps than their “Specialty Store” counterparts (“Internet” 55% vs. “Discount Store” 48% vs. “Specialty Store” 47%).
Report Signals Launch of IAB InsightCenter
“The Path to Consumer Electronics Purchases” includes intelligence from the Media Behaviors & Influence Study from BIGinsight, a consumer behavior portal. The report is the first in a series of consumer research reports that IAB plans to produce in conjunction with BIGinsight. The report also signals the debut of the IAB InsightCenter, a free online service for publisher members to access additional research data via the IAB web site. The series will include findings from BIGinsight’s monthly Consumer Survey, an ongoing survey that summarizes results from 8,500 interviews conducted each month since 2001, and the Media Behaviors & Influence Study which polls some 25,000 respondents twice a year.
“This research will be invaluable to publishers and marketers alike seeking to better understand the specific media influences that drive consumer decision-making behaviors,” said Mane. “Easy-to-use, it is sure to be a boon for our members who are always looking to have the latest information at their fingertips.”
“This InsightCenter can help marketers visualize trends in consumer media behavior and influence,” said Pam Goodfellow, Consumer Insights Director, BIGinsight. “It goes beyond point-in-time reports and instead delivers actionable insights in a customizable, graphical format.”
comScore Ranks Top 50 U.S. Web Properties: Seasonal Boosts for Travel, Career, Taxes
Digital measurement thinktank comScore, Inc. has released its monthly analysis of U.S. web activity at the top online properties for January 2012, based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. Tax sites (including IRS.GOV), travel sites like Kayak.com and educational sites all saw strong gains.
“In January, the average U.S. Internet user spent a record 36 hours online, reflecting the growing importance of digital media to Americans’ daily lives,” said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore. “Among the biggest category gainers in this heavy month of Internet usage were Travel and Career sites, which posted double-digit gains, and of course Tax sites as the non-procrastinators among us decided to get an early jump on getting their refunds.”
Travel Sites
Several Travel subcategories were among the top-gainers in January, including Transaction sites which grew 28% to 3.7 million visitors. TravelPN.com led the category with 798,000 visitors (up 11%), followed by Viator.com with 642,000 (up 9%), WWTE.com with 442,000 (up 86%) and OneTime.com with 278,000 (up 48%).
Car Rental sites jumped 22% to 6.2 million visitors during the month, led by Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company with 3.2 million visitors (up 14%). Avis Budget Group ranked second with nearly 2 million visitors (up 19%), followed by Hertz with 1.3 million (up 21%), CarRentals.com with 793,000 (up 30%) and Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc. with 790,000 (up 27%).
Hotels/Resorts also ranked among the fastest-growing Travel sites. The category attracted 33.2 million visitors in January, representing an 18-percent increase. Marriott secured the #1 position in the category with 5.1 million visitors (up 30%), followed by Disney Parks & Travel with 4.8 million (up 36%), Hilton Hotels with 4.6 million (up 25%) and Expedia Hotels with 3.3 million.
Career and Education
As the new year began, Americans turned their focus to career services and education. Traffic to Job Search sites grew 27% in January to 24.2 million visitors. Indeed.com Job Search ranked as the category leader with 13.7 million visitors (up 33%), followed by CareerBuilder.com Job Search with 9.8 million (up 27%), Monster.com Job Search with 5 million (up 28%) and SimplyHired.com with 3.5 million (up 42%).
Training and Education sites also gained traction, with a sizeable increase of 23% to 14.7 million visitors. LiveCareer.com topped the list with 1.2 million visitors (up 58%), followed by AesopOnline.com with 940,000 (up 44%), FastWeb.com with 736,000 (up 30%) and Learn4Good.com with 599,000.
Tax Sites Spike as Season Begins
Visitation to Tax sites swelled in January as millions decided to get a jump on filing and hopefully getting a refund check from Uncle Sam. More than 30.7 million Americans visited a Tax site in January, up 359% to rank as the fastest growing category.
Top 50 Properties
Google Sites ranked as the #1 property in January with 187.4 million visitors, followed by Microsoft Sites with 179.2 million and Yahoo! Sites with 177.2 million. LinkedIn.com jumped 8 positions to rank #29 with 36.8 million visitors, while Everyday Health, which helped many fulfill their New Year’s resolutions to be healthier, leapt 10 positions to #38.
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
Google Ad Network led the January Ad Focus ranking with a reach of 92.9% of Americans online, followed by AOL Advertising (85%), Yahoo! Network Plus (84.8%), ShareThis (82.4%) and AT&T AdWorks (82.3%).
Upfront Digital: Apple Shops for TV Parts | Too Much Ad Space | MS Anti-Google Ad
Upfront Digital:
• Apple has been “shopping around for TV parts,” reports AllThingsD, meaning an Apple-platform smart TV is inching toward reality. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote in a note to clients that Apple has been talking to TV component vendors. This following some January meetings in Asia, supposedly to scope out manufacturing facilities, which led Piper Jaffray to believe Apple is looking to manufacture large-scale LCD displays.
• Citing “inventory oversupply” in the mobile ad space, Digiday reports that during Q3 of 2011, only 18 percent of impressions were filled by the top 20 U.S. mobile ad networks, and 10 percent worldwide. This says Digiday makes it “increasingly difficult for publishers to generate revenues from their mobile audiences.”
• About.com (a New York Times company) with its evergreen content may not seem a serious ad outlet, but, it is serious enough for Charles Schwab and Procter & Gamble. Now the online outlet has launched Real Recipes, a free app for iPhone and iPod Touch, to deliver About.com’s “deep catalogue of culinary content” (more than 25,000 recipes and numerous menu-planning tools) to the digital space.
• Former “NBC Dateline” anchor will bypass television and anchor straight from the web, reports TV Newser. In a video message on the StonePhillipsReports.com website, Phillips declared that after 20 years in broadcast news, he will now report on stories important to himself. First out of the lineup—head injuries in youth football, in a story called “Hard Hits, Hard Numbers.” As yet, Phillips is not accepting advertising, just donations. Dateline NBC did not review Phillips’ contract in 2007, and he has not been on broadcast television since.
• In an attempt to promote its Bing search engine over Google, Microsoft has launched its “Putting People First” campaign in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today. As Social Times describes, Microsoft argues in the ad that Google sells out users to advertisers by using personal information to influence the type of advertising each customer sees. Microsoft products including Hotmail, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer and Bing, are far safer and more private, the company claims.
Interactive Video Ads Strong in Completion, Action, Finds Benchmark Study
Interactive in-stream ads keep viewers attention found PointRoll, a marketing solutions technology provider and a Gannett Company. PointRoll has announced the findings of its 2011 Video Benchmark Study, which revealed that 78% of viewers completed 100% of interactive in-stream ads, compared to 69% who completed 100% in-stream ads without interactive elements. Further, interaction rates (wherein users took an action within the ad) were more than 300% higher than those of in-banner video ads. The study compared campaign results from April–December 2011.
In interactive ads, automotives are particularly strong in holding viewers attention. Fully 80.66% of in-stream interactive ad viewers watched the ads to 100% completion. Non-profits held strong interest as well at 70.66%, and entertainment at 69.77%.
Non-interactive ads paint a different picture. Consumer goods leads the pack, with 96.85% of viewers going to 100% completion, and consumer electronics second at 82.89%. Last in the field—restaurants and food service, at 9.03%.
A key metric is interaction rate, versus click-through rate. Automotives garnered a 12.29% interaction rate, but only 0.25% click throughs. Consumer goods achieved a 2.07% interaction rate, but only 0.62% in click throughs.
In-banner video is surprisingly soft at holding attention, with an average among all categories, with a 100% completion rate of 38.82%.
Research: Facebook Ads Offer 45% Cost-Per-Click Savings
Facebook enables advertisers to make “considerable savings” in online marketing, found TBG Digital (TBG) in its latest Global Facebook Advertising Report.
As a Facebook advertising firm, TBG is certainly vested in proving great results. But, it had its methodology and findings vetted by the UK’s University of Cambridge, and drew data from its own heavyweight client base, including JetBlue, CapitalOne, Dell and Heineken.
The report, which was based on 326 billion impressions in 205 countries, and from 256 TBG clients. It reveals these findings:
- Strong incentives for advertisers to stay within Facebook, with potential 45% reduction in cost-per-clicks (CPCs)
- Stabilizing Facebook growth in US created an increase in advertising costs
- Facebook earned 23% more in ad rates since Q1 2011
- Ad performance improved by 18% in 2011
- The top five Sectors comprised almost 70% of total impressions
- The financial sector accounted for more than 60% of impressions in offsite campaigns
- CPCs increased from Thanksgiving to Saturday December 17
TBG discovered reductions in CPCs for advertisers that run campaigns to recruit fans or that require users to install applications. Savings reached 45%, in contrast with those that direct traffic away from Facebook. That is a strong incentive for companies to build presence within Facebook. For example, financial services firms often direct users back to their own websites to complete a quotation or sign up, but tailored applications that perform the same functions within Facebook drives down advertising costs.
Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM) rates, the other core cost comparator which indicates how much Facebook earns every time an advert is shown to a user, increased by 8% on average over Q4, for a total increase of 23% in 2011.
Click-Through Rates (CTRs) also increased by 18% during for the entire year2011. This, believes TBG, indicates that ad output is resonating with users more, and indicates a greater that Facebook advertisers have a better understanding and use of targeting methods like time of day, demographics and user interests.
TBG assessed 18 “bellwether industry sectors” for volume and effectiveness. The top five sectors, ranked by volume, were finance; retail; food and drink; games; and entertainment, which accounted for nearly 70% of total impressions on Facebook. TBG Digital CEO Simon Mansell commented that “Users are increasingly discerning about what they view on social media networks, so it is in all advertisers’ interests to ensure that their content resonates with their target audiences and fits with their usage habits. Food and drink recorded the highest CTRs, largely due to successful fanning campaigns in that sector.
Radio Not A Dying Form Factor, But An Evolving One at CES
Radio is the subject of a “flurry of news releases at CES,” being the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But as Radio World describes, “you may have to expand your definition” of the word “radio.”
Among other announcements at CES, TuneIn Radio released a smartphone app that is compatible with Ford’s voice-controlled Sync system. This is a free service and app with access to 50,000 AM, FM, HD and Internet stations.
Subaru is working with Harman to provide its Aha platform in Subaru models. This is a cloud-based platform that enables drivers to use Internet radio content. Harman describes Aha as “the Web-connected ‘fourth band’ of radio, alongside AM, FM and satellite radio.” Aha provides Internet radio from Shoutcast, CBS Radio and Slacker, among other providers.
Slacker and Verizon Wireless debuted the Slacker Radio application for Android, optimized for 4G LTE connections. This the companies described is “A highly visual application [that] features a unique station tile display [and] the ability to preview stations before playing and an optimized ability to browse for content, making music discovery even easier.”
Internet radio may get a boost in Europe, where Ford will cease fitting new models with CD players, in favor of MP3, USB and Bluetooth devices. Drivers will bring their own music on mobile devices, giving them the ability to stream Internet radio.
Apple TV in 2012?
AdWeek is speculating that Apple will deliver its iTV in 2012. AdWeek referred to a report by analysts Sterne Agee, which suggested the success of an Apple television would depend largely upon the selection of content. “Content is a key factor in how people are adopting streaming set-top boxes,” observed MediaBeat. Apple is rumored to be in talks with media companies, CBS included, about creating a streaming platform that would circumvent cable companies: customers would purchase content the way they purchase music from iTunes. iTunes largely circumvents advertisements as well, and there is no speculation as yet how advertising will fit in at iTV.
Report: Coca-Cola’s “Shape” Ranks First for Q2 TV Ads
Coca-Cola’s “Shape” spot that featured its new bottle design was the most effective television advertisement for the second quarter ending June 30, 2011 according to Ace Metrix’s, “Quarterly Top 10 National Ads,” a guide for television advertising effectiveness.
The ad, which was Coke’s highest scoring ad of the last three years and the second-highest scoring ad out of more than 500 beverage ads in the Ace Metrix database, received an Ace Score of 670 compared to the Beverage category norm of 551.
The second quarter top ten list was dominated by new products and packaging enhancements across several different categories. Oreo launched its Fudge Creme line extension with a new spot featuring a family’s “indescribably good” reaction to the new cookie.
Other product launch and packaging enhancement ads include Google’s Chrome browser, Subway’s new salads, M&M’s “design your own M&Ms,” Magnum Ice Creams’ U.S. market launch, Wendy’s new sea salt French fries, Orville Redenbacher’s new popcorn bag, and the iPad 2.
The third highest-scoring ad, Google’s “Dear Sophie,” narrates a little girl’s life through the eyes of her father using a Gmail “diary” that demonstrates the capabilities of Google Chrome.
Chart: Newspaper Ad Revenue, Select Verticals, Q1 2011
About this chart: Source: Newspaper Association of America. NAA makes every effort to have the most complete and up-to-date information available on the website at all times. New and revised figures for this data are posted approximately 3 months after the end of the quarter.