The online journal Huffington Post and owner AOL will launch a video-streaming network between Q2 and Q3, with 12 hours of programming running five days a week.
Journalist and founder Arianna Huffington announced the network yesterday in an enthusiastic post on her website, nicknamed “HuffPo.” As she described, AOL had acquired HuffPo a year ago this week. HuffPost Streaming Network will be overseen by founding editor Roy Sekoff and will sit on every available platform, including desktops, smartphones, tablets and “over-the-top TV,” that is, off network. “We won't be limited by the usual time constraints of TV,” claims Huffington.
While the network will launch with 12 hours of programming, HuffPo plans to increase that to 16 hours by end-of-year 2013. Sekoff described plans for a “never-ending talk show,” and plans to post 30,000 clips during the first year, writes WWD. Content will “emulate the online experience,” writes Huffington, with its impressive—albeit largely unqualified—statistics. Huffington claimed in her announcement the site has 36.2 million unique visitors a month, where its advertising section claims 28. Huffington further claims 253,331 new comments on a single day (January 25 2012) and 1.4 million Facebook referrals.
The Huffington Post advertiser section appears both on its site and on AOL, and enthuses to advertisers that it is “Breaking the news—and the mold.” HuffPo offers only vague statements about its demographic. Their breakdown of their reach:
- 12.8M women every month, who HuffPo reminds advertisers “control 85% of household spending”
- HuffPo visitors are “more likely to have a [household income] of over 150K than average internet users”
- “More likely to have a post-graduate degree than average internet users”
- “More likely to be business decision-makers than average internet users”
Digital Ads: Affluent Buyers Highly Mobile, Digital, But Penny Wise
“Affluents” with a minimum $100,000 in yearly household income spend far more time online than the general population, reports eMarketer. They spend 26.2 hours online per week, versus 21.7 for the population overall. But they watch far less television, at 17.6 hours per week versus the 34 for the average American.
Affluents number 58.5 million, and 33% owns smartphones. Research suggests that the digital ads that reach affluents are—
- Opt-in email ads
- Sponsored websites from search results
- Targeted ads, relevant to what the affluent is doing or searching in the moment
- Ads tied to demographics (e.g., local restaurants, gyms, grocery stores).
On the downside, affluents have money because they don’t throw it away. “The vast majority…do not regard themselves as rich, however, and don’t spend as if they were,” said eMarketer Analyst Mark Dolliver. Of those 58.5 million, only 11% has a household income of more than $250,000. Affluents are in fact cutting back. So, ads for luxury goods and destinations are less likely to reach the affluent than ads for consumer goods and deals on dining and entertainment.
“Bloomberg Pursuits” Luxury Lifestyle Mag Readies for March Debut
When in October 2011 Bloomberg announced it would launch a luxury lifestyle magazine, a Poynter Institute editor described it as “What the 1% reads.” Bloomberg Pursuits is a spin-off of its investor-oriented title Bloomberg Markets, and will debut with a March 2012 issue.
Bloomberg describes its readership as the "Global Financial Elite." Pursuits is exclusive to the 310,000 subscribers to the Bloomberg Professional service, who also receive Markets. The company describes the readership as market-movers, young, business leaders, and influencers with discerning tastes.” (Hence Pursuit’s hiring one editor to report solely upon luxury watches.) The demographics are:
- Age 38
- Average household income $452,000
- Male (90%)
“Our readers don’t just own and appreciate luxury,” said editor Vince Bielski in an interview with WWD. “They have a command and mastery of their toys.” WWD got an advance look at the debut issue, which will contain 46 pages of editorial and 30 ad pages, with such brands as Hermès, Chanel and Rolls-Royce. Issue 2 is not due until December, then the book will go quarterly in 2012. Feature articles include such titles as "Collectors Revive Picasso" and "Fine Tuning Ferrari."
“Singletons” Ignored by Advertisers, But Spend $1.9 Trillion a Year
Advertisers are just waking up to unmarried adult “singletons,” according to a Fortune story. Despite the perception of miserable loners sitting at home, they socialize up to five nights a week, and spend more than $10,000 per person per year more than married counterparts with children.
The Fortune story was adapted from the book Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, by New York University sociology professor Eric Klinenberg. Among Klinenberg’s findings:
- 28% of U.S. households now consist of one person, 40% of city households
- Average per capita annual expenditure was $34,471 in 2010, versus $23,179 per person in high-income households with children
- The majority of singletons is female, at 18 million versus 14 million men
- 18-34 year olds are the smallest but fastest growing demographic
Singletons spend their discretionary income largely on socializing several nights a week at bars and restaurants, in special-interest clubs and joining gyms. This, speculated CEO David Eastman of advertising giant JWT, is why alcohol advertisers like Smirnoff now favor images of friends at communal tables, versus couples. Elsewhere, Nestlé reported that 90% of its Lean Cuisine meals are eaten alone, and failed when it attempted to market double-serving meals.
Still, the singleton demographic is largely untapped. Only a handful of big-ticket advertisers, including Norwegian Cruise Lines, Coldwell Banker, Lowe’s, Chevrolet and DeBeers have targeted singles. DeBeers now offers a “right-hand ring,” a diamond designed for single women, and Norwegian Cruise Lines offers “studio staterooms” for single travelers.
Mobile Ad Space: Ownership Doubles of Tablets, E-Readers Since December
U.S. marketers raised their mobile ad budgets by 7-8% in Q4 2011, but may wish to boost them further. Mobile ad outlets, e-readers and tablet computers specifically, nearly doubled in market reach, and in just six weeks.The percentage of U.S. adults who own tablet computers jumped from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January. The percentage of those who own e-book readers jumped the same 10-19%, reports the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
All told, 29% of Americans own at least one of the two devices; that percentage jumped from 18% in mid December.
Pew calls these findings “striking” after stagnant ownership figures between Summer and Autumn 2011. But as Christmas approached, “Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet were introduced at considerably cheaper prices than other tablets.” Among e-readers, some models of the Kindle and Nook fell below $100.
Who are the owners?
After the holiday rush, a full 36% of tablet owners lived in households earning more than $75,000. Almost a third, 31%, is college educated. The highest percentage of ownerships is among adults 30-49, at 27%, but the 18-29 demographic is not far behind, at 24%.
The e-reader story is a bit different. Women outpaced men as new adopters, and now 21% of women own them, versus 19% of men. The average household income was more evenly spread, owing to the lower total cost of ownership.
Food Network Magazine Savors 7th Ratebase Bump
Hearst Magazines announced yesterday that Food Network Magazine will increase its ratebase—its seventh increase since its 2009 launch—by 50,000, and up to 1.45 million. As Folio reports, Hearst’s most recent filing with the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) for the period ending June 30, 2011 tallied the total paid and verified circulation at 1,472,607, and print and digital single copies at about 340,000. This increase took effect with the January/February 2012 issue.
Hearst first piloted the magazine in late 2008 with a test circulation of 300,000 issues. In August 2011, the company announced that Food Network would reach 1.4 million for the 2012 January/February issue, but surpassed that figure by 50,000.
The magazine's media kit describes its demographics as 71.9% female, 28.1% male, with a relatively low median age of 41; it has 6.1 million readers aged 18-49, and 4.6 million aged 25-49. Median household income is $66,978, lower than some of its epicurean competitors like Saveur.com and Bon Apetit, but likely due to its younger and roughly 50% single readership. Food Network Magazine’s success underscores a trend for 2011; two of the top five fastest-growing digital properties were epicurean sites, being Saveur.com and BonApetit, also a print journal. All but one of the top five were lifestyle books.
Lifestyle, Luxury Mags Garner Top Ad Page Growth
While 15 of 24 categories saw ad pages decline in 2011, Media Life reports that books targeting the “haves” versus the “have nots” are doing just fine. Lifestyle and luxury titles all saw gains, in the categories of fashion, recreation, home and general interest. Media Life (quoting data from MagazineRadar) reported that luxury apparel books increased their ad pages 11% in Q3 2011, and luxury magazines in general by 6%. That, opposed to a print book decline of 5.6% for the quarter.
Some of the winners: Departures, at a 43.3% jump; Architectural Digest at 9.1%; W, 5.6%; and Power & Motoryacht at 24.9%.
The reason is simply that upper-class readers weathered and recovered from the recession better than did the middle and lower class. Media Life quoted a Pew study which found that middle class families have lost 23 percent of net worth, versus 12% for the upper class. Those losses for the upper class were largely in property values and stocks—they continue to pay bills, versus lower-income consumers.
Publishers Information Bureau data also reveal that the two books that gained the most ad pages in Q4 2011 were AARP the Magazine with 84.7 percent, and Reader's Digest Large Edition, up 117.8 percent. Parenting magazine with their younger demographics were down 12.8 percent, says Media Life.
Top 5 Digital Magazines of 2011 Heavy on Dining, Content
Access Intel and minOnline have tracked 121 online magazines, and has released the top five by highest percentage-gain of unique visitors.
Saveur.com (a Bonnier property) invites readers to “Savor a World of Authentic Cuisine” took top honors, with 218% growth in unique visits. Its online media kit describes its demos as 75% female of median age 51, median household income of $137,100, and average minutes spent a decent 6.4 minutes. Interestingly, the site is light on advertisers. They include California Olive Ranch and luxury home goods maker One King’s Lane. Saveur.com in 2011 moved away from aggregation to include, for example, Saveur’s Food Blog Awards, more video, and the Saveur 100 favorite recipes.
The conservative-leaning Newsmax.com gained 213% for second-place growth in unique visits. Newsmax.com quotes Nielsen ratings, in claiming itself to be the “Top Independent News Web site” ahead of Associated Press and NPR. The demo is generally well-heeled and educated. Men are 62% of the readership, 43% are baby boomers, 85% are homewners and 22% have an investment portfolio of more than $250,000. Hence, advertisers like Goldline International offering “Gold Delivered To Your Door!” Also, PACs and localized political advertisers through AdSense.
In all instances, minOnline observed, the pubs compete on content, but hedge their bets with, for example, syndication through Yahoo! in the case of BonAppetit.
Google+ Reaches Affluent, and the 18-34 Age Group
In the days following the June 28 launch of Google+ as invites became more available, visits to the site steadily increased, particularly between July 5th and July 12th. To date, Tuesday, July 12th and Thursday, July 14th were the peak days for total visits, according to analysis from Experian Hitwise.
The highest share of visits to Google+ since launch is from those between the ages of 25-34 and those between 18 and 34 were more likely than the overall online population to visit. The audience to Google+ tends to be more affluent, over-indexing for those earning a household income of $60k and over, particularly $150k and up.
For the week ending July 19, 2011, the average visit time for Google+ was five minutes and fifty seconds up from four minutes and fifty two seconds the week prior. While the average visit time has increased since launch, in comparison, users spent an average of 21 minutes and fifty seven seconds on Facebook last week.
The combination of Google and Gmail accounted for over 50% of all upstream traffic to Google+ last week, with additional referrals from other Google properties like YouTube and Google Profiles. Facebook ranked 3rd among websites visited immediately before Google+, not surprising since many social network users tend to maintain multiple accounts, especially to experiment with new social networks.
Chart: Mobile Ad CTR, by Gender, Income
About this chart: Source: JumpTap STAT (Simple Targeting & Audience Trends), June 2011 report. The results of the Jumptap STAT report are derived from network data to identify targeting and audience trends. Jumptap uses proprietary algorithms to analyze and normalize this data. In some cases, when sufficient conditions are met, subsets of data may have been used as proxies to represent the overall network.