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Industry-Research

A fan-centric formula is a must for the media businesses today

According to PwC’s annual report, Perspectives from the Global Entertainment and Media Outlook, today’s entertainment and media companies must be “fan-centric.” And to remain competitive, they must use technology and data to attract, retain, and engage consumers. Content and distribution remain important factors in monetization and healthy survival rests on a positive user experience. Businesses built on occasional and noncommittal visitors are not likely to succeed.

PwC’s guide to a fan-centric approach:
  • Know your fans
    Understand what drives fan loyalty for your brand. Analyze and know the value of different audience or user segments.
  • Increase your business agility and flexibility
    Ensure business flexibility to respond faster to new user preferences, new business models, and new technologies
  • Monetize your fan relationship
    Build brand extensions to create new revenue opportunities among your passionate fan base.
  • Adopt a user-/fan-centric focus
    Super-serve fans and compete in the direct-to-consumer marketplace. Build an end-to-end user experience that includes customer acquisition and retention, personalization, customer service and billing.

PwC also reports that most of the traditional entertainment and media industry, TV advertising, B2B content, and cinema, will decline as a share of the global economy in the next five years. And while digital video and advertising show growth opportunity, it’s at a decelerating rate. In addition, several new content and entertainment businesses — music streaming, e-sports and virtual reality — are just ramping up of which the latter two are not yet mainstream. Therefore, consumer consumption and spending on media and entertainment will not outpace the GDP.

Today’s marketplace presents numerous challenges for media and entertainment businesses. They must manage their current delivery platforms and experiment with new distribution platforms and revenue streams all while remaining consumer-focused across all platforms.

Audiences | Industry-Research

Adults in the U.S. spend half their day with media

With the upfronts happening this week in New York—where the FOX Broadcasting advertising chief, according to one report, threw “shade at digital, likening it to subprime mortgage crisis”—the recently published U.S. Time Spent with Media report from eMarketer provides some facts and forecasts to the conversation. Specifically, how much media U.S. adults consume, and how it is consumed, across digital, TV, radio, and print.

The FOX head of advertising’s comment are especially curious given that only a couple of weeks ago, Recode reported that “This is the year digital beats TV” when it comes to ad sales, which surprised exactly no one who follows industry trends. That said, any reasonably well-informed marketer knows this much: TV advertising moves product. And most companies that can afford to promote their wares via television, do. Google has built an empire by serving up classified ads on a global scale. However, the platform can’t yet motivate us to purchase $80,000 cars, switch insurance carriers, or buy low-calorie-but-watery beer at staggering volumes. TV spots are incredibly effective at their jobs, no matter how stereotypical and annoying they may seem.

At the end of the day, neither digital nor television advertising are going away anytime soon, though the delivery backbone is certainly evolving.

Here’s what eMarketer’s findings show, and what you need to know about consumers’ media habits:

  • US adults will average 12 hours 7 minutes of media usage per day in 2017, up 3 minutes compared to 2016, and 15 minutes compared to 2014. Time spent with mobile will account for nearly all of this year’s increase. Following several years of rapid evolution—driven by digital and mobile—consumption is stabilizing across media and device types.
  • Digital and TV combine to account for 82% of daily media consumption. A breakdown of the 727 total minutes of average media consumption each day: 350 minutes with digital (48%), 244 minutes with TV (34%), 86 minutes with radio (12%), and 25 minutes with print (3%).
  • It’s important to acknowledge the “convergence” factor, meaning that there is a meaningful amount of video and radio consumption in the “digital” category. People are watching video and listening to radio via smartphones, laptops, and desktop computers.
  • Non-digital TV remains the biggest single element of US adults’ daily media usage, but its share slowly dwindles each year. Among millennials, time spent is declining sharply. Time spent with digital video keeps rising and is expected to average 1 hour 13 minutes per day this year.
  • Half of US adults read print publications (newspapers and magazines). More than 90% of U.S. adults are TV viewers, radio listeners, and mobile phone users. While most US adults will be internet users this year, a nontrivial 14% of them will not be.
  • More of the digital universe is designed to cater to smartphones, and this often takes the form of apps. In-app usage is expected to account for 89% of smartphone time and 77% of tablet time this year.

Tim Bourgeois (@ChiefDigOfficer) is a partner at East Coast Catalyst, a Boston-based digital consulting company specializing in strategic roadmaps, digital marketing audits, and online marketing optimization programs.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

How to engage multitasking, multiplatform consumers

The avalanche of mobile services and apps has led to a sizeable shift in media consumption towards mobile. But the smartphone is not always competing for people’s attention. To the contrary, a new report from Deloitte tells us the smartphone enhances TV viewing experience. But this bright spot can’t disguise the brand imperative to re-think advertising to engage audiences, not annoy them.

Drawing on a survey of 2,131 U.S. consumers Deloitte’s 11th Digital Democracy Survey highlights how key audience segments including Millennials, Gen X and Gen Z (in other words, a broad spectrum of user ages 14 and above) interact with mobile, video, TV and the Internet.  While the findings are not surprising, they are an important confirmation of people’s attitudes and behaviors and the trends sure to shape the future of media.

Optimizing Experiences

“The shift to streaming, mobile, on-demand services and personalization are significant opportunities in 2017,” Kevin Westcott, vice chairman and U.S. media and entertainment leader, Deloitte LLP, says in a press release. “Brands can bring new value, services and incredibly entertaining content to the empowered consumers across all age groups in a manner that can be monetized.”

But it won’t be a walk in the park. Yes, there is ample proof that American consumers streamed, “binge-watched” and demanded more media than ever in 2016. However, there is also an increased reliance on social networks (and friends) to make purchase decisions.  Social recommendations are proving “more influential” than traditional advertising, the report says. For example, nearly one-third (27%) of Gen Z respondents say an online recommendation from someone within their social media circles can highly influence a buying decision.

Multitasking also makes it tougher for traditional media, such as TV, to grab (and keep) audience attention. The shift to second-screening may enhance the viewing experience. (I’m thinking here of the uptick in mobile app interaction and social media sharing that coincides with the broadcast of cult shows like The Walking Dead). It also detracts from the effectiveness of TV advertising. The verdict from Deloitte: “Enlisting online influencers and creating social buzz” are likely the more effective avenue for getting through to younger consumers.

Remastering Marketing

Another barrier that companies need to overcome is the quality of their advertising – or rather the lack of it. The report reveals the vast majority (more than 80%) of consumers will skip an online video ad if allowed. And 67% of consumers are tuning out mobile ads on their phones because they find them irrelevant. Against this backdrop, a large percentage of respondents are reaching to ad-blocking tech to snuff of unwanted advertising. (Although, to be fair, their motivation is linked with the desire to improve the speed and performance of the content and videos consumed online and on mobile.)

Amid the doom-and-gloom data that leads us to believe consumers hate ads, a few surprise findings (buried on page 12) show the way for brands to improve the experience for consumers and the effectiveness of their advertising. More than half of all consumers say they would be willing to receive advertising on their smartphones based on location.  Significantly, 46% said they would pay more attention to an ad if they were able to make the call on whether they view it or skip it.

It’s a report that reinforces what has become my mantra: People want what they want – when, how and where they want it. Consumers crave more geographic relevance in their advertising and they want more control over the advertising they have to view as a condition to access and enjoy content. Clearly, brands are well advised to adapt their advertising approach to these consumer requirements. There is no guarantee the changes they make will trigger a conversion, or win customer loyalty. But it’s sure to grab at least some attention. And in a world where consumers are multitasking and massively reliant on their social circles, a little attention can mean major traction.

Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.
Industry-Research | Perspectives

As content consumption evolves, so must media and marketing strategies

Streaming online content continues to grow as social media and over-the-top services appeal to more consumers, especially to Millennials and Gen Z audiences. In fact, almost half (49%) of all US consumers now subscribe to a paid streaming video services with almost 60% penetration among Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z.

Interestingly, cable and satellite subscriptions remain steady at 74% of US Households. This can likely be attributed to pay TV subscriptions bundled with Internet services. US consumer media habits are shifting significantly. To better understand these changes, Deloitte’s Digital Democracy Survey offers insight into the multi-generational view of consumer technology, media, and telecom trends.

Key takeaways:

  • Binge watching becomes the new norm. Close to three quarters (73%) of US consumers report binge watching. Nearly nine in 10 Millennials and Gen Z say they binge watch video content. Deloitte defines binge watching as viewing at least three or more episodes in one session. It’s time for marketers and content produces to think differently about reaching the binge-watching audiences. An advertiser may want to try product placements in a series for added frequency. Content producers may want to think about new distribution strategies such as releasing content as a bingeable mini-series instead of offering a feature-length movie. Of the content streamed, paid streamed content comprises 35% of consumers streaming time and free services take up 40% of stream time.

  • Social recommendations are proving more influential than TV ads. More than a quarter (27%) of Gen Z consumers report that an online recommendation from someone within their social media circles can highly influence a buying decision. This can be more impactful than TV ads (18%).
  • Advertising struggles for attention. When the TV is turned on, it competes with everything for attention. Nearly all Gen Z and Millennials (99%) report multitasking when they are watching television reporting an average of four other activities occurring simultaneously. Further, eight in 10 (80%) consumers’ report skipping online video ads when allowed, and just over two-thirds (67%) of consumers report mobile ads on theirs phone are irrelevant.
  • Digital ad avoidance is growing. Almost half (45%) of Millennials use ad blocking software on desktop. Forty percent report using it on their smartphones with 85% doing so to improve the speed and performance of their online experience.
  • Relevant and optional are key to engaging ads. More than half of all consumers say that they would be willing to receive geographically relevant ads on their smartphones. Further, nearly half (46%) of consumers say they pay more attention to an ad they can skip versus an ad they cannot skip.
  • Social media usage is ubiquitous. A full 84% of all consumers are active on social networks. Penetration is higher among Millennials (96%) and 93% Gen Z (93%).
  • Social media helps in connecting consumers to companies. Consumers interact with corporations, with more than 70% of Millennials reporting that they used social media to interact with customer service in the last year. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of Millennials find their interaction with customer service on social media more positive than connecting with customer service on the phone (70%).

Consumers are now conditioned to watch content whenever, wherever, and on whatever device they choose. The constant availability of streaming content and social media offer new opportunities in the marketplace. Advertisers and content creators can form new relationships with the consumer, interacting with and personalizing the consumer experience.

Industry-Research

Online consumers know the source of news about half the time

In today’s digital environment, there are multiple consumer pathways to access digital news. Online news consumers are almost equally as likely to get their news directly from a news website (36%) as they are from postings on social media (35%) reports Pew Research Center, in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in their study, “How Americans encounter, recall and act upon digital news.”

Online consumers are aware of the news sources they consume. In fact, over half of respondents (56%) could provide a name of the digital news source if the followed a link to the story. The links come from social media; news organizations’ emails, texts and alerts; or the emails and texts of friends or family.

Path to content

The report also identifies the pathways online news consumers use for specific content categories. Business and finance news, for example, are 53% more likely to be accessed directly on a news website than social media (12%). Entertainment news, in contrast, is more likely to be found on social media (53%) than on a news website (25%).

Consistent with previous findings, about half of both 18 to 29-year-olds (47%) and 30 to 49-year-old (42%) online news consumers received their news through social media as compared with less than of quarter of older adults (23%). Interestingly, women who consume news online (39%) obtain news through social media slightly more often than male online news consumers (30%). In contrast, more males who consumer news online (43%) go directly to websites than women who consume news online (29%). When 18 to 29-year-old online news consumers click on news links, they remember the source about half the time (47%) compared to 30 to 49-year-olds and 50 and older (57% and 61%, respectively).

Name that source

In terms of naming their news sources, CNN was recalled by 14% of those who followed links, Fox News 12% and Facebook 10%. Important to note, Facebook is not a publisher, it only distributes news, it does not produce content. The New York Times, The Huffington Post, MSNBC, Yahoo, ESPN, The Washington Post and CBS were reported between 3% to 6%.

Online consumers seek out the news online about 40% of the time, compared to 24% of the time when online news consumers come across news story while already getting news about something else.

Follow-up, recall and call to action

Online news consumers are just as likely to follow up (58%) on news content they consume as often as they do not (42%). In terms of follow up actions, speaking with someone in person or over the phone is the most common action to take (30%) searching for more information (16%) and posting on social media (10%).

The study also found that news that comes directly from a news site tends to be recalled more often but is less likely to bring about any action such as discussing, sharing or commenting. In contrast, news that comes through a personal connection, an email and text from friends or family, is most likely to bring about a follow-up action.

Additionally, the follow-up actions taken tend to remain within the landscape in which the online news originated. In other words, news found on social media is more likely to then be shared on social media sites, while news that comes through search engines is more likely to lead to additional searches.

Today’s online news environment faces many challenges. It’s important for digital publishers to identify and understand the different digital media habits, especially since consumer attention is splintered across multiple news sources and platforms. Publishers can now align their strategies, to strengthen brand equity, build engagement and encourage social action, by identifying the best pathway to showcase their online news coverage.

Industry-Research | Video

People are watching more video on mobile, but not on the go

The Streaming Video Alliance (SVA) examines the role of the smartphone in the transition of television viewing experience in its study The Mobile Video: Exposed. According to their research, consumers are using their smartphones consistently to watch more video content. Whether it’s user-generated content (YouTube), how-tos, or news, consumers seem to enjoy watching on their pocket-sized computers.

The dominant location for watching video on the phone is at home. It is interesting to note that consumers are opting to watch video on their phones rather than watching it on TV. This might suggest a time constraint or it might be a conscious decision to watch content that isn’t available on broadcast channels. Whatever the case, SVA suggests that the mobile phone is becoming a surrogate for broadcast television most likely because of the kind of content it can provide.

figure1However, the SVA has not found the smartphone to displace other, larger screens. That said, they report that it is playing an increasingly important role in how people consume video content. Not only are people watching more video on their phones while at home (displacing attention from the television), they are also using the smartphone to watch video more because of the ease in being able to share the experience with others.

The Mobile Video: Exposed study is part of the Streaming Video Alliance’s series of annual surveys that explore consumer perceptions and behaviors around watching video on mobile phones.

Key findings of this report include:

  • 25% of consumers watch more than 2 hours of video on their smartphone each week.
  • iOS is the dominant mobile operating system through which consumers watch video, but Android is a close second.
  • When it comes to watching video on their phones, consumers opt for web streaming versus using an app.
  • Consumers are most often watching video on their phones at home.
  • Despite the growth of premium OTT providers, YouTube is the dominant source for video on mobile phones.
  • When watching video through social networks, Facebook is crushing the competition.
  • Buffering and data usage top the frustrations for mobile video watching.
  • Consumers love the convenience of mobile video,
  • Despite growing in popularity, mobile video still plays second fiddle to most other video sources.
  • Although broadcast television still holds its sway, the mobile phone is encroaching on the experience.
  • On mobile, consumers like to watch on their mobile phones? UGC, How-Tos, and News most.
  • Consumers prefer to watch video over WiFi but will use cellular data to get the content they want when WiFi is not available.
  • With more data, consumers would watch more video on their phones but they won’t pay for it.

figure2

Industry-Research

Social media is a daily touchpoint for most Americans

Social media is part of Americans every day routine with a majority stating that they get their news through social media. In fact, half of the Americans turned to social media to learn about the 2016 presidential election reports Pew Research Center’s Social Media Update 2016, which was based on a national survey of over 1,500 adults.

The present state of the social media landscape includes 79% of Americans using Facebook, more than double the number of its nearest competitor, Instagram (32%). Other top social media platforms includes 31% of Americans use Pinterest, LinkedIn (29%) and Twitter (24%). In terms of reflecting the total U.S. population (including those consumers who do not use the internet), 68% of all U.S. adults are Facebook users, 28% use Instagram, 26% use Pinterest, 25% use LinkedIn and 21% use Twitter.

social-media-reciprocity-chartFacebook clearly remains the most dominant social media platform out there. It is the strongest social platform of the five included in this study among online young adults, Eighty-eight percent of adults 18-29 use Facebook; followed by Instagram at 59%, Pinterest and Twitter at 36%, each, and Linkedin at 34%. Facebook is also gaining traction among older adults, ages 65+. Close to two-thirds of adults ages 65 plus now use Facebook.

Facebook is a daily habit for most of its users with 76% visiting the site daily and of the daily visitors, 55% visiting multiple times a day. Interestingly, 56% of online adults use more than one of the five social media platforms included in this study with the highest duplication of usage on Facebook. This means that 95% of Instagram users, 93% Twitter, 92% Pinterest also use Facebook.

messaging-appsSocial media apps are also popular among close to three-quarters of Americans (72%) using smartphones. Twenty-nine percent of smartphone owners use general-purpose messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Kik. Almost one-fifth (24%) use messaging apps that automatically delete sent messages, such as Snapchat or Wickr, and 5% use apps that allow people to anonymously chat or post comments, like YikYak or Whisper.

Users are often motivated to use social media platforms for their communal and social offerings. Social platforms easily remove communication and interaction barriers and allow users to communicate and share news with like-minded people. The social networks do even more to attract and engage users in these areas such as new in-app search functions, embedded content and live streaming video. These features (as well as an ever-expanding menu of new ones, along with an emphasis on the mobile experience are important as key platform differentiators in the marketplace.

Audiences | Industry-Research | Perspectives

Liquid Audiences Impact Content and Marketing Strategies

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and YuMe have published a new white paper “Digital Advertising Audiences: The New ‘Liquid Consumer’ Paradigm,” which collects creative, brand, agency and publishing leadership to provide insights and guidance on navigating the new “liquid audiences” that discover content across a range of mediums, devices and platforms. The report demonstrates that the need to reach the “liquid consumer” has strong and specific implications for the creation, organization, distribution, and measurement of content.

The report highlights key ways that “liquid audiences” should impact content and marketing strategies. Among them:

  • Definitions of “audience” must evolve – currently-used gender/age definitions no longer suffice
  • Unsurprisingly, “social” and “mobile” are  crucial, but both embrace a wide array of meaning and nuance, which marketers must unpack to build successful strategies
  • Understanding how someone navigates to content can be critical to connecting with that consumer
  • The industry’s fixation on KPIs and standard metrics can distract from the more important goal of building fan-bases
  • The line between “marketing” and “content” continues to fade – it’s all storytelling

The complete “Digital Advertising Audiences: The New ‘Liquid Consumer’ Paradigm” whitepaper is available for download.

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
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.

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