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Category results for "Industry-Research"

Industry Research

Advertising | Industry-Research

comScore Looks at Shifts in Digital Consumer Behavior

comScore has released its 2015  U.S. Digital Future in Focus.  The report provides a year in review of the major shifts in digital consumer behavior that occurred in various online sectors, including mobile, social media, video, advertising, search and e-commerce. Furthermore, it examines what insights can be gathered from these trends and what that means looking forward to the year ahead.

From the report:

  • While most of the growth in digital media consumption over the past four years has occurred on smartphones (up 394 percent) and tablets (up 1,721 percent), these mobile platforms are not eating into aggregate time spent on desktop, which has still grown 37 percent over this time period. The digital media pie continues to get bigger and Americans engage with screens during more occasions throughout the day than ever before.
  • Across every age demographic, there is a substantially higher percentage of multi-platform and mobile-only internet users than the previous year. More than 3/4ths of all digital consumers (age 18+) are now using both desktop and mobile platforms to access the internet, up from 68 percent a year ago. Mobile-only internet usage is also becoming more prevalent, driven largely by the 21 percent of Millennials who are no longer using desktop computers to go online. Meanwhile, the 55-years-and-older consumer segment is actually the fastest growing faction of mobile users, increasing its combined multi-platform and mobile-only share of audience from 60 percent to 74 percent in the past year.
  • Because people prefer different devices depending on the online activity or task, the desktop vs. mobile skews by content category can vary widely. Categories such as Photos and Maps are more often than not used on the go, lending themselves to heavy mobile usage, while the Portals and Business/Finance categories comparatively index much higher on desktop devices. Although Portals function as an accessible hub of information on desktop, the mobile environment is markedly different where apps have taken on the role as the gateway to the web.

Key topics covered in the 2015 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report include:

  • The implications of an increasingly multi-platform digital population
  • The fastest growing digital media properties and mobile apps
  • The continuing disruption of mobile in all facets of digital
  • How the major social network audiences stack up against each other
  • Digital advertising’s transition to transacting on viewable impressions
  • The continuing growth of online video and emergence of mobile and over-the-top video
  • How total web searches are distributed among desktop, smartphone and tablet devices
  • The unrelenting growth of digital commerce and emergence of mobile commerce
Advertising | Industry-Research

Mobile Ad Spend to Overtake Desktop by End of 2015

Mobile advertising will soon capture the majority of digital ad spend, according to a new report from Marin Software, provider of a cross-channel performance advertising cloud. Driven by rapid consumer adoption of mobile devices, and a corresponding surge in mobile ad clicks and conversions, the report finds advertisers will spend more on mobile than desktop ads by the end of 2015.

The benchmark report, “Mobile Advertising Around the Globe: 2015 Annual Report,” includes statistics and trends uncovered through an examination of the Marin Global Online Advertising Index.

Findings from Marin Software’s Global Mobile Advertising Report include:

  1. Mobile device adoption amongst consumers continues to grow relative to desktop. Consumers spend more time and attention on mobile devices than desktop now,1 and advertisers have been shifting spend away from desktop towards smartphones and tablets to reach consumer attention. Due to this digital advertising paradigm shift, mobile advertising budget is predicted to exceed desktop advertising budget by end of 2015.
  2. Consumers are more likely to use mobile devices for product research than desktop. Smartphones and tablets are used by consumers for research and represent the top of the funnel, while desktops are where they go to convert.
    With 40% of all online adults starting an activity on one device and ending on another, it’s important to retarget ads seen on mobile to desktop or tablet in order to ensure maximum view-time by engaged consumers. Use a third party tracker to track users across device and channel to fully optimize advertising spend through retargeting ads.
  3. However consumers are still much more likely to convert on desktop. Desktops are still the primary conversion-driving device; however research has shown that many consumers use mobile devices as upper-funnel research, and convert in-store or on desktop. Mobile conversion attribution for these cross-device and offline conversions must be tracked and recorded to properly create the link between mobile clicks and conversions.

clickthroughMarin

Industry-Research

Digital Drives Magazine Audience Growth

Magazine media audiences were up 12.6% for the month of February 2015 versus the previous February, according to the latest Magazine Media 360° Brand Audience Report published by MPA—The Association of Magazine Media.

The report, which uses data from leading third‐party providers, reveals a gross audience for magazine brands of 1.7 billion in February 2015 versus 1.5 billion in February 2014. The February performance continues to benefit from increased video and mobile web consumption, up 18.7% and 78.0%, respectively, over the same time period in 2014.

This month, web (desktop/laptop) was up 6.9%, with nearly half of all websites in the report showing double-digit to triple-digit growth in unique visitors versus the same period last year. This growth is notable after six consecutive months of flat year-over-year web audience numbers, a trend which reflected, in large part, the migration of online media consumers to mobile devices.

According to an analysis by MediaPost, the list of magazines with the biggest gross audiences was led by ESPN The Magazine, with a gross audience of 92.8 million in February 2015, due to its combination of Web (25.4 million), mobile (40.3 million), and video (11.8 million) audiences. In second place was People at 85 million. With a strong performance across digital channels, it also boasted a print audience of 44 million.

Better Homes and Gardens came in at third place with a gross audience of 49.1 million. Forbes was in fourth place with a gross audience of 45.7 million, followed by Time at 44.8 million and AARPat 44.4 million.

The complete report, which currently covers approximately 145 magazine media brands from over 30 companies, can be found at www.magazine.org.

Industry-Research

Online Radio Consumption and Podcasting go Mainstream

The Infinite Dial 2015 is the 23rd in a series of studies on consumer adoption of digital media dating back to 1998. It uses a random probability telephone sample representative of all Americans ages 12 and older to explore a wide range of digital behaviors from smartphone adoption to social media usage and content consumption trends.

This new national survey from Edison Research and Triton Digital found that online audio “is now a fully mainstream activity for people under 55.” The research also concludes that podcasting “is increasingly mainstream and carving out a segment of highly attractive advertising targets.”

Among the many other findings:

  • The Internet is the second most used medium turned to first in the event of a major news story; (40%). Television still ranks first at 50%, though that number has declined significantly since 2010 when it was 62%.
  • The Internet is the most essential medium to those polled (54%), followed by television at 30%, Radio at 9% and Newspapers at 4%.
  • People now turn to the Internet to learn about new music (44%) over radio (32%).
  • Podcasting is on the rise, as monthly audio podcast consumption grew from approximately 39 million monthly users in 2014 to approximately 46 million in 2015.
  • Podcast listeners average six podcasts per week.
  • Nearly two-thirds (63%) of all users and nine-in-ten 12 to 24 year-olds have used YouTube to watch music videos or listen to music.
  • Mobile devices are the devices of choice used to listen to Online Radio (73%) and Podcasts (55%).

Download The Infinite Dial 2015 here.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Financial Times Research Shows Context Matters for Digital Advertising

Publishers would have you believe that environment matters more than ever when it comes to the effectiveness of digital advertising. The Financial Times wanted to make this more than a theory. To that end, on March 4th, 2015 Daniel Rothman, director of marketing and insight at the Financial Times, presented The 2015 Halo Study – new research that set out to test (and prove) that environment matters more than ever in digital advertising. While this is not the first time this type of research has been conducted (i.e., BBC’s Advertising Dress Test, IAB’s VW campaign test, and DCN’s Branding on Display Research), it’s easy to understand the need for regular updates to this research given the constantly evolving digital landscape.

“This research highlights for advertisers the importance and relevance of websites affiliated with traditional media companies and helps educate (in Halo’s case, using neuroscience) how brands are clearly viewed depending on the environment that they appear within,” Rothman said.

The FT study coined and defined the term “Observable Halo Effect”: the subconscious perception that brands that have ad placements next to high-quality content benefit from the “halo” of that publishers brand, creating trust, and positive measures for their brands. The FT research looked at six brands and nine content providers; brands with ads on the more established content providers (FT, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg) garnered significantly higher brand perceptions, or Observable Halo Effect, compared with brands with ads on emerging sites (Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Drudge Report, Twitter and LinkedIn).

Rothman noted that “Commissioning a project such as our FT Halo Study is a significant financial and time commitment. Many brands and even smaller agencies may be unable to make investment into projects such as this. We are happy to share all the findings with all marketers and agencies– and have already begun to do that across the US and UK.”

Additional findings from The 2015 Halo Study:

  • Not all content providers are equal. Established content providers are more likely to be perceived as high quality, trustworthy, and more prestigious than non-traditional media owners.
  • You can’t fit a square peg in a round hole. When consumers act like media planners, they place 50% more ads in established content sites compared with emerging sites.
  • Right environment = implicit added value to a brand. Customers implicitly have a higher perception of the brand and a quicker reaction time indicating the best natural fit with established content providers. The same attributes — especially high quality and trustworthy — are what people look for in new products and services.

FTPanel

After presenting his findings, Rothman moderated a panel of marketers and agency executives to discuss the results. The panelists were Christine Bacon, Head of Advertising at Allianz Global Investors, David Rosenbaum, EVP, Group Account Director – LVMH at Havas and Matt Hickerson, Managing Director, Marketing & Communications at Macquarie Group.

Some takeaways for agencies and marketers from Rothman’s panel:

  • Ask questions. Before picking content partners, brands must ask themselves:
    What is the brand’s DNA?
    What are my goals and what am I trying to accomplish?
    What is the right audience?
    Is the content provider the right environment for my brand?
  • Brand reputations matter. Brand perception can change based on platforms. Smart brands want to be in smart environments.
  • Quality over quantity. Brands are looking for quality interaction and will only make an impact if there is the right integration. Being on many different platforms and in front of a myriad of audiences is not always the answer.
  • Content adjacency is key. Content adjacency problems are an ongoing issue. Brands can mitigate risk with high quality and collaborative briefs that focus on desired goals and outcomes.
  • Thoroughly evaluate platforms. Well-established brands are not always looking to rush into new environments. And in certain categories (such as financial institutions and luxury products), many choose not to unless there is proven success by similar brands. Brands should properly evaluate each platform they partner with – it’s not always about being the first.

“The Halo Study is an example of the commitment that FT has to providing our clients and the advertisement community at large with unique market insights. One of the advantages of the Financial Times is that we invest significant funds into analytics, which include campaigns performance analytics, brand lift studies, brand tracking studies as well as larger macro industry trend pieces,” said Rothman. While The Halo Study may not repeated for another two to three years, we can expect to see more research from the FT this year, including a study of Opinion Leaders and a Media Engagement study.

Industry-Research

How Millennials Get News

Millennials consume news and information in strikingly different ways than previous generations, and their paths to discovery are more nuanced and varied than some may have imagined according to a new report  by the Media Insight Project, a collaboration between the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Among the study’s findings:

  • While Millennials are highly equipped, it is not true they are constantly connected. More than 90 percent of adults age 18-34 surveyed own smartphones, and half own tablets. But only half (51 percent) say they are online most or all of the day.
  • Email is the most common digital activity, but news is a significant part of the online lives of Millennials, as well. Fully 69 percent report getting news at least once a day — 40 percent several times a day.
  • Millennials acquire news for many reasons, which include a fairly even mix of civic motivations (74 percent), problem-solving needs (63 percent), and social factors (67 percent) such as talking about it with friends.
  • When Millennials want to dig deeper on a subject, search is the dominant method cited by 57 percent (and it is the one cited most often as useful), followed by news sites (23 percent). Only 7 percent cite checking Facebook to learn more.
  • And when Millennials do dig deeper, the most important qualities that make a destination useful are that they know the source well (57 percent) and that this digital source is transparent and rich with references and links (52 percent).

Read the API’s full report, How Millennials Get News: Inside the habits of America’s first digital generation.

HowMsGetNews

Industry-Research

On-Demand Streaming Audiences Signify Opportunities and Challenges

According to Nielsen’s newly released Total Audience Report (Q4 2014), consumers’ time and attention around media is in flux. Increased video viewing on digital platforms to both native digital content and TV-produced content, as well as the rise of subscription-based video on-demand (SVOD) across all platforms, are changing the way we look at the consumption of traditional media.

Neilsen finds that increased consumer time and attention creates opportunities for content owners, though the economics in digital remain challenging for all but a few, particularly given the raft of new competitors in the space (they liken it to a “modern day gold rush”).

Nielsen reports that:

Over 40% of U.S. homes had access to an SVOD service as of November 2014, and 13% of homes boasted multiple streaming services. Homes with subscription streaming services have both a penchant for TV-connected technology and, perhaps more importantly, display the greatest usage of these devices—nearly 50 minutes more than a typical TV home.

Homes with subscription streaming services have both a penchant for TV-connected technology and, perhaps more importantly, display the greatest usage of these devices—nearly 50 minutes more than a typical TV home. These homes average 10 more minutes daily watching time-shifted TV and double that in terms of time spent using a multimedia device (such as Apple TV and Roku) than a typical TV home.

SVODhomestechuse

New York Times Analysis of the research:
Nielsen Charts Reach of Video Streaming

Industry-Research | Perspectives | Research

Sharethrough Takes A Neuroscience Perspective to Look at Mobile Native Advertising

Sharethrough, a software company that enables leading websites and apps to manage their in-feed, native ads, commissioned a study “A Neuroscience Perspective: Asessing Visual Focus, Message Processing & The Ability To Strengthen Associations Through Mobile Native Advertising” from Nielsen to determine how consumers visually process mobile ads. What’s interesting about this particular study is that instead of the usual survey-based research, it applied eye tracking and neuroscience—the study of subconscious reactions in the brain—to mobile advertising.

According to Sharethrough:

Unlike survey-based mobile measurement, which evaluates a consumer’s conscious reactions to ads, neuroscience taps into the brain’s subconscious reactions as well. This is critical: the subconscious is the motivating force behind many of our actions, including which brands we buy from.

To understand the effectiveness of mobile advertising, the study (conducted in accordance with Nielsen’s proprietary methodology) compared native ads and banners, both placed in-feed. Nielsen worked with five premium advertisers, including Boeing, creating mock ads from similar creative elements that were optimized for each format. Study participants were shown a video simulating the experience of scrolling through an editorial feed. The feed is paused and the participant is shown either a native ad or an in-feed banner. Using a combination of EEG data— measurements of neural activity in the brain—and eye tracking, Nielsen quantified where and how the participants’ focus was being directed.

Among the key findings, which Sharethrough explores in more detail, are:NativeAdBrain

  • Native Ads Appear to Receive Two Times More Visual Focus than Banners
  • Banners Are Processed Peripherally
  • Native Ads Are Being Read
  • Native Ad Headlines Can Be Optimized to Trigger Associations
  • Brand Assets Impact Brand Resonance Lift

Quartz’ Alice Truong takes a look at the research in her article:
Scientific proof that no one pays attention to banner ads

Industry-Research

Pew Looks at Local News in a Digital Age

The Pew Research Center has just released its latest report,
“Local News in a Digital Age,” which:

…takes a microscope to the information streams in three news environments across the United States: Denver, Colorado—a highly educated urban area of more than 2 million with internet adoption above the national average and a large Hispanic population (19%); Macon, Georgia—a metro area of 175,000 with a substantial share of black residents (41%), an unemployment rate above the national average, and a local university working to serve as a hub for journalism innovation; and Sioux City, Iowa—a city that spans three states and has a predominantly white population of just 125,000. These cities are not meant to be extrapolated to the United States as a whole, but rather serve as a set of case studies on the ebb and flow of daily local news that speak to the diversity of modern American cities.

Pew breaks the results out into several distinct mini reports:

Some of Pew’s major findings include:

  • One of the greatest disparities occurs not across metro areas, but within them: that of race and ethnicity.
  • In all three cities, some local entities outside of journalism, particularly within government, are using the Web in part to serve as news providers.
  • Citizens are a part of the news process but mainly as quoted sources or as disseminators of news in social media.
Industry-Research

How Kids’ Media Palate Changes as They Age

A Nielsen analysis found that as young viewers cognitively and developmentally change, so too do their cross-platform habits.

According to Nielsen, kids’ media consumption across age ranges is akin to transitioning from strained peas to silverware—with distinct differences in taste, viewing and listening preference, and even who they’re viewing with.

For example, while more than 95% of all kids (2-17) prefer to watch traditional television over 20 hours a week—with Hispanic kids averaging about a half-hour more—the analysis found that older kids and teens go online on computers more, as about 29% of teens 14 to 17 years old were online via computer for at least one minute in March 2014.

Read the Nielsen post:  Grow and Tell: As Children Age from Toddlers to Teens, Their Media Palate Changes

 

Industry-Research | Video

Digital Dominates Millennial Content Consumption

DEFY Media has announced findings from its third annual ACUMEN Report: Constant Content. The report, conducted in partnership with Hunter Qualitative and KnoWhy Research, focused on teens and young adult Millennials to examine their content consumption.

acumentmillenialAccording to the report, digital dominates their content consumption with 13-24 viewers revealing a considerable 11.3 hours weekly watching “free” online video and 10.8 hours of subscription online video weekly – nearly twice the time reported for free online TV offerings from broadcast and cable networks (6.4 hours) or 8.3 for regularly scheduled TV. And, while 96% of those surveyed say they watch online video, only 57% watch free online TV and 56% watch recorded TV with no differences across the age range.

This segment also finds online personalities to be the most relatable and influential. For the millennial set, YouTubers are the today’s role models. Among the younger 13-17 segment, 32% responded they are more likely to look up to a YouTube personality over traditional celebrities, while the older 18-24 set reported a slightly higher affinity towards TV and movie stars (36% vs. 26% for YouTubers).

Industry-Research | Research | Revenue | Video

FreeWheel Q4 2014 Video Monetization Report

FreeWheel, a Comcast-owned ad serving platform servicing many major TV and cable networks and online video services, including A&E Networks, Discovery Communications, ESPN, NBC Universal and Univision, has released its Q4 2014 Video Monetization Report.

The report found that 2014 digital video growth was driven by ultra-premium content – new seasons of shows and live streaming. This was closely related to growth in TV Everywhere authenticated viewing.

Key findings include:

  • Live viewing grew 297% year-over-year, driven by strong growth in Sports streaming and News simulcasts.
  • First-run broadcast shows attracted far more viewers this quarter than the year prior, as seen by a 67% increase in digital video ad views.
  • Over-the top (OTT) streaming devices, overwhelmingly used for long-form and live viewing, overtook tablets, accounting for 8% of all video ad views.
  • Authenticated viewing grew 591% year-over-year, as 56% of all video ad views on long-form and live content now come from behind authentication walls.
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