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Industry-Research

Learning to please the love ‘em and leave ‘em millennial crowd

Millennials – the ‘distracted demographic’ between the ages of 18 and 34 were weaned on the Internet and spoiled by content choice. They have grown up to become the largest generation in the U.S. with a wallet to match. If you think it’s a lucrative audience ripe for the taking, think again.

Tapping the significant opportunities and tackling the even greater challenges around influencing this massive audience requires a deep understanding of digital content consumption trends and how their evolving media habits make them different from the rest of the population.

This is where Millennials on Millennials, the research program and research report series from global performance management company Nielsen is breaking new ground to offer critical insight into topics that impact Millennials and the media industry as a whole. The inaugural report and the second in the series, released in August by Nielsen’s own Millennial associates, leverage Nielsen audience datasets to shed important light on the “why’s” behind key engagement trends and highlight the ways brands, marketers and content companies can seek connect with this highly coveted demographic.

While the first in the series uncovered hard truths about Millennials (they are glued to their smartphone, they are distracted by multitasking and they are bothered by advertising -unless it is a precursor to accessing free content), the second volume of research reveals hard numbers around their digital media and social media usage.

It’s no secret that Millennials are engaged with digital content during all waking hours of the day and keep their devices close by – and turned on – when they sleep. In fact, Millennials are glued to their smartphones (1,179 minutes each in Q4 2016 on their devices compared to 659 minutes for those aged 35-49).

Socializing

Top of the list, and leading by a massive margin, is communication via social media platforms and apps. Unsurprisingly, these platforms have grown up with Millennials and are now an integral part of the daily routine. While social communication use has plateaued at an extremely high level, growth is getting a boost from Millennials that have broadened the number of services and apps they use. Specifically, 70% of Millennials report using two or more apps for messaging. Notably, Millennials are also 8% more likely than users 35 and older to use messaging apps for group conversations.

Listen Up

Millennials aren’t just connecting in more ways; they are consuming more content across more platforms. Digital music consumption, a topic examined in the report, is witnessing the most significant – and surprising shift.

You would imagine that digital consumption via Internet and apps is reducing Millennials’ appetite for traditional radio tune-in. However, Nielsen has found the opposite is true. The research pegs weekly reach of broadcast radio among Millennials at a whopping 93%. At the same time on-demand streaming is going strong. More than half (60%) of Millennials say they use two or more apps to stream music.

Interestingly, podcasts are also winning over Millennial audiences and a growing share of their attention. Nielsen reports 37% of Millennials listen to podcasts at least once a week, while 13% say they listen every day, compared with 5% of consumers 35 and older who tune in on a regular basis. (Little wonder media companies, including the Washington Post, are scrambling to turn readers into listeners with the help of compelling podcasts that mash up news, analysis and celebrity.)

More Content, More Consumption

The good news: Nielsen confirms the plethora of content offers and options “has actually inspired increased consumption” among Millennials. With so much digital content to choose from Millennials aren’t opting for one or the other; they are consuming all of the above.

The not-so-good-news is that more isn’t always better. “Millennials are an unfocused audience and they are less likely to stay loyal to specific media the way other generations are,” the report states. Millennials may be making more space in their lives for more digital media consumption, but this also increases competition for their attention.

Winning the loyalty of this demographic will be an uphill battle, and winners will be the companies that adapt their offer to the evolving media habits of multitasking Millennials, not seek to limit them.

Industry-Research

Digital news is a mixed media experience

Most adults today use a combination of different sources and platforms to get their news reports the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017. The global report is based on a survey of more than 70,000 people in 36 markets, with added qualitative research in many of the countries. Social media is a big part of this media mix, as are TV, websites and apps. In fact, two-thirds of social media news users in the United States also watch television news (67%) and two-thirds also visit mainstream websites or apps (66%). Further, only a quarter (24%) of the respondents think social media does a good job in separating fact from fiction, compared to 40% for the news media.

News brands struggle with their branding on distributed and social platforms. Reuters tracked over 2,000 respondents in the UK to see if they could remember their path to a news story found on Facebook, Google, or others. Only 37% of respondents could recall the name of the news brand when coming from search and 47% when coming from social.

Trust Issues

Trust in the news media varies greatly across countries. According to the report, less than half the population (43%) trust the news media. Trust in the news is highest in Finland (62%) and lowest in Greece and South Korea (23% each). There appears to be a strong correlation between consumer distrust in the media and perceived political bias, especially in countries with high political polarity like the U.S where trust in the news media registers at 38%.

The news also appears to be impacting the consumers’ emotional psyche. Close to a third of respondents (29%) state they often or sometimes avoid the news. Many say the news negatively impacts their mood and heightens concern over their inability to rely on the news to be true.

Additional findings:
  • Outside the U.S. and UK, growth in social media for news is leveling off many markets. In its place, messaging apps that are more private and do not algorithmically filter content are gaining in popularity.
  • Mobile access for news is increasing in many countries. Mobile news notifications have grown significantly in the last year, especially in the US (+8 percentage points), South Korea (+7), and Australia (+4). This has many news publishers working with third party distribution like Facebook Instant Articles and Google AMP for quick efficiencies for content loading on mobile devices.
  • Mobile news aggregators show usage growth, notably Apple News, and Snapchat Discover for younger audiences. Both have doubled YoY usage with their target audience.
  • Smartphones are now as important for news inside the home as outside with 46% of consumers using their smartphones to access news in bed.
  • Voice-activated digital assistants like the Amazon Echo are emerging as a new platform for news, outpacing smart watches in the US and UK.
  • Overall, YoY growth of digital news subscriptions across all demos, especially among those under 35 years old. Specifically, online news subscriptions in the U.S. grew from 9 to 16% subscriptions. Across all countries, approximately one in ten consumers (13%) pay for online news.
  • Ad-blocking growth has leveled off on desktop at 21% overall and is only 7% on smartphones. Interestingly, in some countries, more than half state they have temporarily disabled their ad-blocker for news in countries like Poland and Denmark (57% each) and the United States (52%).
Add Value

Melissa Bell, Publisher and co-founder, Vox Media comments on this analysis “if we work to rebuild trust with our audiences, we may find our way to more stable, significant businesses.” She’s identify a few key questions for publishers to think about and address as they continue to provide quality news content across platforms.

  • What is currently not being offered to audiences? How can content appear essential to them?
  • Can the sense of community be recreated for audiences around the country – or the world?
  • How do publishers help audiences seek knowledge instead of simply publishing information?
  • How can publishers help audiences feel less anxious with today’s news content?

Importantly, publishers need to solve problems for their audiences. Digital news publishers’ focus on quality, transparency, and accountability will allow audience trust and engagement to follow.

Industry-Research

How publishers can use mobile apps to drive engagement

With so much mobile app time concentrated in the top apps, it can feel as if every other publisher is fighting for the scraps. As a small or medium-sized publisher, how does your app succeed when half of all app engagement occurs within the Top 10 largest apps overall? Potentially even more discouraging for publishers, on an individual basis 96% of a user’s time spent occurs within their top 10 most used apps, according to comScore’s recently released 2017 U.S. Mobile App Report.

While this app environment is certainly challenging, it’s actually more positive for smaller-to-medium-sized publishers than it might seem at first glance. Many of these publishers today focus more (or even exclusively) on their mobile web strategy knowing that it’s easier to capture large mobile audiences this way than on mobile apps.

The downside of this strategy is that mobile web audiences tend to be a mile wide and an inch deep – they provide audience scale, but not engagement. On a per user basis, the advertising opportunity within the app is leaps and bounds better than the mobile web. In fact, the average visitor for the Top 500 apps spends 16x more minutes per month than the average visitor to the Top 500 mobile web properties. For this reason, moving the needle on acquiring and engaging more app users even a modest amount can have a significant impact on monetization.

To further illustrate this point, a 2015 analysis conducted by Jacob Nelson based on comScore data examined the digital audiences for 25 leading news publications. One of the major findings from Nelson’s analysis was that “while apps comprise an average of just 6% of the 25 news properties’ mobile audiences, they account for nearly half (45%) of the time that audience spends with those properties.”

Strategic Approach

Given the incredible opportunity for apps, here are three strategies publishers should consider to more effectively acquire and engage app users:

1. Offer users a reason to download the app.

This is somewhat obvious but nevertheless a critical point to make. Publishers can’t just assume that “if you build it, they will come.” In addition to an app taking up storage space on a user’s phone, there’s also a degree of friction that users face in going to the app store and downloading an app. If a publisher doesn’t offer the user a reason to put the app on their phone in the first place, most users will default to the lower friction alternative of visiting the mobile website – or even worse – not accessing the publisher’s content at all because they don’t have that prompt readily available on their screen.

One reason many people download an app is for easy access to that publisher’s content. It might be that some users simply need a reminder of this. Communicating to a publisher’s high engagement mobile web users that they can access the same content via the mobile app can be an effective way to convert any “low-hanging fruit” web visitors to app users. A more aggressive marketing approach could be offering a promotion for downloading the app, in the form of a discounted subscription or access to other special or premium content that they couldn’t otherwise get.

2. Serve up relevant content to drive usage frequency.

Once you convince someone to download your app, your next goal needs to be getting them to use it. The best way to do this is to meet and exceed their need for high quality content. This can be done by personalizing users’ feeds to put the most relevant and engaging content directly in front of them. A one-size-fits-all approach might not be optimal if it means a low or modest signal-to-noise ratio for the reader. If every time a user opens the app they instead see a selection of articles that is most likely to interest them, this creates a self-reinforcing habit that increases the likelihood that they will return to the app frequently – and spend more time while they’re there.

Timeliness of content is another important factor to consider. If you want to maintain a loyal audience, you have to be prepared to provide great content to the user whenever he or she demands it. Some users may even appreciate you telling them when you have content that is relevant to their personal tastes and interests. comScore found that interest in push notifications grew to 43% in 2017 from just 27% last year. Millennials tend to be much more receptive to these types of alerts than older generations, with 63% of them always or often agreeing to an app’s request to allow push notifications.

3. Get your app on the user’s home screen.

This last recommendation is the most challenging, but if your app is relevant enough to get promoted to a user’s smartphone home screen, then there’s a far greater chance your app will get used with more frequency. In fact, comScore found that 80% of mobile users intentionally move apps to their home screen, and 61% of those home screen curators cite app usage frequency as the top factor influencing their decision to promote an app to this premium position.

It was also found that there is an extremely high correlation for users’ “most essential” apps being placed on their home screen. This again comes back to quality, quantity and timeliness of content. If you have a lot of content that is relevant to the user at the moment they desire it, then your app will feel essential to the user, which might result in them giving you some of the best ‘real estate’ on their phone, setting your app up for success.

It’s important to remember that a small percentage of users can make up a huge percentage of overall media engagement and the corresponding advertising opportunity that comes with it. While having audience scale is important, it’s also important to drive loyalty and engagement to maximize monetization opportunities. Apps are an ideal way to get the most out of these loyal readers, or even convert casual readers into loyal ones. Modest gains in driving app usage and engagement can have a meaningful impact on the economics of digital publishers.

Adam Lella is a Senior Marketing Insights Analyst at comScore and co-author of The 2017 U.S. Mobile App Report. His research has spanned across numerous industry topics including digital, TV, e-commerce and advertising.

Industry-Research | Video

The top five opportunities in streaming video—and the challenges that come with them

Streaming video on demand—also known as OTT viewing –is becoming the norm in video content consumption today. It also presents an incredible opportunity. The combined size of the OTT market was estimated at $29.4 billion in 2015, and is expected to grow to more than $64 billion by 2021. Parks Associates reports that one-third of US homes have a streaming player, which is one of the most popular ways to view video today (other than traditional TV). Though mobile already accounts for more than half of all video viewing.

In its report, Top 5 Video Trends in an IP-based World, Parks Associates examines both the challenges and opportunities presented by the rise of OTT video viewing. In addition to outlining these trends, the report looks at larger market challenges such as allowing content distributors to own the consumer relationships and the evolution of storytelling, content production and delivery in an IP-based world.

According to the report, these are the top 5 video trends today:
  1. Users expect opportunities to interact with their content.

This presents challenges in terms of flexibility and responsiveness, but provides an opportunity to learn more about—and appropriately monetize—audiences.

  1. Global, IP-based video services will be the next big revenue pool for content makers.

This presents challenges to reaching a global market for everything from technology to legal and localization issues. However, the opportunity for monetization at scale and in hyper-local and niche contexts is huge.

  1. Live TV is not dying; it is shifting to connected devices.

The technological demands of delivering live content at scale are quite high but audiences are attracted to real-time content, which creates a must-watch revenue opportunity.

  1. Consumers will demand new, diverse types of content.

Creating new content types is never easy, but for those who do, audiences and earnings are sure to follow.

  1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) will play a key role in the success of video services.

Though already being effectively implemented in a range of media settings, AI is hardly a perfected technology. There’s plenty of work to be done. That said, Parks sees it as the key to the evolution of personalization, with monetization opportunities to match.

For each of its key trends, the Parks Associates report offers real world examples while outlining the associated challenges and opportunities. And this, of course, is the most practical way to capitalize on digital’s promise: Understand and address the challenges while creating solid revenue strategies that support a long-term strategy

Industry-Research

Strategies used by digital-native news publishers to drive user engagement

Getting ones’ news digitally is not just for millennials—it’s the norm these days. In fact, nine in 10 U.S adults get their news digitally either via desktop or mobile. We’ve also seen strong digital native brands, those originally founded on the web like Vox Media or Huffington Post, emerge as leaders in the news marketplace. The new Pew Research Center research looks at 36 digital native news outlets that averaged at least 10 million monthly unique visitors in Q4 2016. The analysis provides an excellent snapshot of the digital native news industry’s audience strategies to increase outreach and engagement.

Usage and engagement

Overall, digital native news outlets are performing well. Monthly unique visitors for the 36 sites for the digital native news outlets increased 12% in 4Q 2016. Users also spent a healthy 2.4 minutes per average visit.

The use of digital native news apps is an important part of audience strategies. Close to two-thirds (61%) of the highest traffic digital-native news outlets have apps available for either iOS or Android. Mobile compatibility is an important part of their overall strategy and user engagement. In fact, 42% of these new outlets have apps supporting both iOS and Android.

User outreach is key to building and sustaining engagement. Almost all digital native publishers (97%) offer newsletters. Three-quarters produce podcasts and 61% have comment sections on their articles to promote consumer feedback. Digital news outlets also rely on social media to engage their users: All of those covered have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. Almost all have Instagram accounts (92%) and are on YouTube (97%). Less than 25% have a Snapchat channel or account.

Revenue growth

Digital advertising continues to grow as a proportion of total advertising revenue, a trend that Pew points out is driven in large part by growth in advertising on mobile devices. Interestingly, based on a Pew Research Center survey conducted earlier this year, more than eight-in-ten (85%) U.S. adults now get news on a mobile device compared to 72% just a year ago.

The report cites eMarketer estimates that digital advertising grew to $72 billion in 2016. Mobile advertising revenues accounted for 65% or $47 billion of the digital ad sales revenue. Desktop advertising revenue on the other hand continue to decline, now at 35% of total ad revenue. And, as ever, the report emphasizes the dominance of Facebook and Google in both banner and mobile display ad revenue.

Building a strong native digital news brands includes a platform native approach aligning publisher, platform and consumer strategies. Digital native publishers should experiment to find their unique voice and consumer connection. Importantly, the strength of a native digital news brand is deeply rooted in an engaged reader relationship.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Brands are stepping up their media governance

It was just a matter of time – we all knew it had to happen eventually – but the other shoe is dropping on digital advertising’s most glaring weaknesses: accountability and fraud. Brands are taking steps to exert more control over growing online advertising budgets, and rely less on external agencies to do the job.

This is according to a new survey from the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) of 35 global companies with more than $30 billion in ad spend. To wit: nearly 9-of-10 say they are pulling back spending in ad networks that don’t allow third party verification, and three quarters of them say transparency is an “escalating” issue.

Though short of revolutionary, these survey findings indicate a meaningful attitudinal shift among brands: now more comfortable with the digital channel, and under pressure from CFOs and CEOs to get waste under control, they’re putting pressure on the source – the media buying function.

Former Mediacom CEO Joe Mandel set this process in motion back in March of 2015 at an Association of National Advertisers meeting when he declared: “I personally believe we’re living through the least transparent time for the media industry in our careers”. Fast forward to May of this year, when WFA’s survey was conducted, and we’re beginning to see empirical evidence of the backlash.

What this means for different constituents in the digital marketing ecosystem:

  • Whenever there’s talk of “digital media” in general, it’s important to remember that Google and Facebook comprise 70%+ of the activity. So evolving media buying practices are largely targeted at getting Google- and Facebook-enabled advertising under control.
  • These media buying shifts are significant, especially in light of the TV, radio, and print channels over the second half of 20th century, which were remarkably stable; it tooks brands awhile to respond to fraud and viewability issues because they hadn’t really had to deal with media buying challenges since the introduction of TV advertising in the 1950s.
  • As brands get more comfortable with theirs hands on the online media buying controls, new opportunities will emerge for channels beyond Google and Facebook. Nearly half of respondents in the survey indicate they are shifting away from using CPM as the key pricing metric, and this favors niche players and premium brands.
  • Agencies have been bracing for this market shift for years, and have been aggressively investing in their technology infrastructures and talent pools as a way to prepare. (See WPP’s list of investments on Crunchbase.) As is the case with brands, agencies are maneuvering to become less reliant on Google and Facebook, and those that haven’t are vulnerable and risk obsolescence.
  • Peripheral players in the ecosystem – lawyers, auditors, verification companies and watchdog groups – are boosted by these findings. Almost 90% of survey respondents said they already have or are planning to include “specific media/financial audit right clauses” in contracts, suggesting that brands are putting agencies on notice, and plan to keep a closer eye on activity moving forward.

Given that digital will soon account for nearly half of all advertising spending – and was barely its own unique line item as recently as 2000 – brands are smart to be re-thinking their approaches to online media buying. Indeed, many industry experts will credibly claim that these changes are long overdue. Regardless, the trends signal an interesting new chapter in digital marketing, where opportunities will emerge for organizations – brands, agencies, and publishers alike – that evolve to accommodate changing marketplace demands.

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.

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Industry-Research

Today’s paradox of privacy

The Privacy Act of 1974 emphasizes the need for both “notice and choice” to protect consumer privacy online. “Notice” gives consumers the information about data collection and use, and “choice” allows consumers to determine whether their data is collected and shared. But do the checks and balances of “notice and choice” really help to protect consumer privacy?

The Digital Privacy Paradox: Small Money, Small Costs, Small Talk Report by Susan Athey, Christian Catalini and Catherine Tucker from the National Bureau of Economic Research, offers insight on the privacy paradox and the inconsistencies between privacy preferences and actual consumer privacy choices. The research examined how more than 3,000 undergraduates engaged in privacy preferences while choosing an online wallet to store and manage digital bitcoin currency.

Different wallets, different incentives and encryption offerings were proposed to evaluate privacy offerings of different dimensions. Students could choose between four wallets: Blockchain, a hybrid web/self-managed wallet, Circle or Coinbase, both web wallet services or Electrum, a self-managed wallet. Participants were also asked about their preferences in privacy features (privacy from peers, intermediaries and government) and their degree of trust in financial institutions, startups and government to ensure a balanced and randomized sample.

Findings showed that regardless of their privacy preference, students shared their friends’ data when given a small incentive. Surprisingly, even the more privacy-sensitive students responded to the incentive offering.

One incentive gave students a pizza in exchange for three friends’ email addresses. Interestingly, a clear majority of the students chose pizza. Neither gender or levels of privacy sensitivities had any effect on choices. Six percent of the students appeared torn in the decision process and provided invalid emails.

In addition, when privacy required additional effort — such as encryption technology — students often went with without it in their transactions. In total, 55% of participants tried adding encryption and only 49% of those who tried succeeded. The remaining participants transacted without encryption.

Small incentives can misdirect people. To ensure privacy practices, current policies should be reviewed to determine how people can be protected from their willingness to discard privacy practices. Consumers need to make meaningful choices when it comes to privacy and incentives often cloud the decision-making process.

Advertising | Industry-Research | Revenue

Consumer publishing is changing: Which advertising methods are working best?

With the introduction of new advertising formats, ad types, and methods of buying and selling inventory, consumer publishing is undergoing some big changes. To get a closer look at what’s working,  MediaRadar conducted the “2016 Consumer Advertising Report,” using our data science-powered platform to review these trends for 2016 and Q1 2017.

Here’s a look at some of the most notable findings.

Native advertisers up 74 percent.

High CPM ad placements are surging. Native ad buyers, in particular, are up, rising three-quarters (74%) from Q1 2016 to Q1 2017. This represents the largest growth in buyers for any ad format. Looking back further, we found that demand for native has nearly tripled since January 2015, which had less than 1,000 buyers (981). In January 2017, there were almost 3,000 (2,882). Consumer advertising is shifting as audience consumption patterns evolve. We foresee advertisers will keep spending more on native because it often outperforms traditional ad units.

Print ad spend declined 6 percent.

The number of print ad pages in Q1 2016 was 117,551. Compared to Q1 2017, the number of print ad pages has decreased 8 percent year-over-year to 107,698. Similarly, estimated print ad spend has declined 6 percent from Q1 2016 to Q1 2017. However, even with this decline, there are still a considerable amount of pages being bought. We notice niche and enthusiast titles are on the rise, with some regional titles flourishing.

Programmatic buyers down 12 percent.

According to our data, 45,008 advertisers purchased ads programmatically in Q1 2016. In Q1 2017, however, the number of programmatic advertisers dropped substantially, falling 12 percent year-over-year. On the quarter, more than 5,000 fewer advertisers (39,415) bought programmatically.

After years of growth, the decline in programmatic buyers is likely attributed to concerns around brand safety – especially given the recent problems for companies like YouTube. This form of advertising continues to evolve as brands seek more control over where their ads are running. We expect to see programmatic rise as more brands move to programmatic direct models.

Our report showed that native is surging, and buyers are investing accordingly. Print ad spend is declining as a whole, but is buoyed by vertical subject matter and titles. Publishers can also expect to see programmatic rise as more brands shift to programmatic direct models. It will be interesting to see how these developments play out in the second half of 2017.

Industry-Research

Online testing provides strong support for site redesigns

A good website redesign challenges the status-quo. It questions a site’s navigation, layout, and plan and demands efficiencies without sacrificing user experience. Accordingly, a well-planned and researched design proposal will achieve improved user engagement, page views and time spent. The Engaging News Project, an initiative of the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas, investigated the impact of design testing to provide news organizations with necessary audience feedback before going live with redesign.

To do this, the Engaging News Project partnered with a major Canadian news site and a major U.S. news site to conduct two experiments. The first experiment, the online test, showed consumers the old sites and the redesigned sites. They were then asked questions about their perceptions of the site. In the second experiment, the live test, the redesigned homepage was shown to a random audience (approximately 8,000 persons) in real-time. Key usage metrics were collected on these users to measure engagement.

The Findings

The Canadian sites redesign focused primarily on the number of photos and the amount of text featured on the homepage. The new site included more photos and less text compared to the existing version. The U.S. sites differed most notably in page width, emphasis on photos, and the amount of content. The new site featured a wider design and more vertical content. The new site had fewer photos at the top of the page, but larger photos after scrolling, compared to the old site.

  • Live site tests consistent with experimental online test for most metrics
    The redesigned Canadian site in both the online experiment and live test, was favored. More page views per visitor, a lower bounce rate, and higher average time per visit were generated. Consumers appeared more engaged and spent more time on the site when they went to the site on their own (live experiment) versus those being direct to the site (experimental design).

    Interestingly, findings for the U.S. website, both online experiment and live test, favored the old site. The new site registered a higher bounce rate, lower time on page, and shorter scroll depth in comparison to the old site.

  • Article recall differs
    Article recall for some articles was better on the new site and for others on the old site. Differences in overall recall corresponded with the presence of images and where the articles were placed on the page. For the Canadian website, those using the new site recalled more articles than those using the old site and for the U.S. website, there were no differences between overall recall on the old or new site. Importantly, overall recall did not differ based on people’s age or based on previous experience with the websites.The Engaging News Project further identified which specific articles on the sites were recalled and what might account for these differences. For the Canadian website, three articles were recalled more on the old site more than the new and six were recalled more on the new site than the old. For the U.S. two of the top 10 articles had better recall on the new site than old and six articles had better recall on the old site than new.

  • Improving RecallIn researching individual article recall, the Engaging News Project concluded:
  • Pictures impact recall
  • Placement in the first column may also affect article recall
  • The amount of scrolling to reach an article may impact recall and
  • They found no differences in recall when articles are of equal focus in either old or new site.

When undertaking a website redesign, clear objectives and metrics must be defined and tested. Online site design testing ensures consumer feedback and quality assurance prior to going live. It should be included in all news site redesign plans.

Industry-Research

Trusting News Project sets out to re-establish news media credibility and value

Fake news is the catch-phrase used by many today to discredit all types of news stories and media outlets. Fueled by social media, the term “fake news” pools all news media—be it respected or far from it—together. However, fake news is not about the inaccuracies of credible news journalists. It’s about setting a specific agenda to distort information and deceive readers with the purpose of a deriving a specific action or outcome. It’s an attack on the truth. And it’s an affront to trustworthy news journalists.

The Reynolds Journalist Institute (RJI) created the Trusting News Project to help confront this attack and enhance the credibility of news journalists. The project was launched to create a dialogue between the news media and the consumer. To get started, 28 newsrooms partnered to asked their audiences (a total of 8,728 respondents) about their views on the credibility of news in order to understand the brands they trust and distrust, what they pay for and why.

Who Trusts Whom and Why?

In total, 70% of respondents report subscribing to one or more news products. Overall, more than two-thirds (67%) of respondents are likely and very likely to trust mainstream journalism organizations. On the opposite end of the spectrum, 33% of say that they are unlikely or very unlikely to trust the news.

Interestingly, those consumers who identified as liberals are more likely to both trust and pay for the news than those who identified as conservatives. Not surprisingly, older respondents are more likely to pay for the news, across both politics and race.

Consider the Source

The most trusted news source mentions (based on opened ended top three choices) are:

  1. The Economist
  2. Public television
  3. Reuters
  4. BBC
  5. NPR
  6. PBS
  7. The Guardian
  8. The Wall Street Journal
  9. Los Angeles Times
  10. The Dallas Morning News
  11. The Blaze

The least trusted new source mentions (based on opened ended bottom three choices) are:

  1. Occupy Democrats
  2. BuzzFeed
  3. Breitbart
  4. Social media
  5. Trump
  6. Infowars
  7. Yahoo
  8. Internet
  9. Huffington Post
  10. The Blaze

The Trusting News Project also asked respondents to identify their political ideology based on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (very conservative) to 5 (very liberal). The self-reported estimates allowed for the scoring of media news outlet by political ideology.

As expected, cited media sources closely align with respondents’ political views. For example, the users who mentioned Rachel Maddow as a trusted source were an average of about 1.35 points more liberal than the scale’s norm. Liberals most often cited The New York Times, NPR, and The Washington Post as trusted, while the brand most listed by conservatives was Fox News.

The Trusting News Project is building strategies to help consumers re-establish trust with news media brands. Identifying and understanding audiences, especially by political ideology, allows newsrooms to inform their approaches to further demonstrate their trustworthiness.

 

 

Industry-Research | Video

SVOD subscriptions become the norm

Consumer appetite for content is going strong: Viewers watch 4 hours and 23 minutes on average per day. However, traditional TV viewing is declining while viewing of subscription video on demand (SVOD) services is growing. In fact, subscribing to a SVOD service is becoming the norm. Two-thirds of viewers now subscribe to at least one of the three big SVOD services (Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu). In fact, according to the Hub Entertainment Research Study, Decoding the Default, 38% of viewers subscribe to two or more of the “Big 3.”

Among SVOD subscribers, three-quarters report that Netflix was their first SVOD subscription. Currently 61% of viewers subscribe to Netflix, 36% to Amazon Prime, and 22% to Hulu.

Consumers have multiple reasons for having more than one SVOD service:

  • Top explanations for adding Hulu to Netflix: to watch specific shows not available on Netflix (54%) and for greater selection of shows and movies generally (45%)
  • Top explanations for adding Amazon to Netflix: for greater selection (33%), for Amazon originals (33%), and for access to movies not on Netflix (31%).
Exclusive!

Access to exclusive content is recognized as the key driver of SVOD subscriptions. Hub Entertainment Research identifies key consumer benefits for each platform.

  • Live TV: Breaking News (71%), Local TV (71%) and Local Sport Events (69%).
  • Netflix: Binge Viewing, Past Season Viewing (39%) Viewing (34%) and Watch on the Go (24%)
  • DVR: Catch-up Viewing (27%), Specific Show (16%) and Full Attention (16%)

Netflix appears to be the stickiest among those who default to Netflix. Just under two-thirds (63%) report they would drop other TV services before dropping Netflix.

Why SVOD?

To address the SVOD adoption trend, broadcast and cable networks increasingly offer multiple episodes or complete seasons via video on demand (VOD) to encourage binge watching of new series. However, these efforts have found limited success.

SVOD offers both a social and an individual experience. This is important to attract younger audiences. The growth of OTT services is changing the television industry. It will be interesting to see how the market evolves. Key questions include what new strategies will emerge and how will viewership be monetized beyond subscription revenues Will it be advertising, advertising free, or advertising light?

Advertising | Industry-Research | Perspectives

Google’s dominance in digital ad spending continues, though challengers have emerged

Spending on search engine advertising is trending up — increasing to 22% growth in Q2 on Google, an increase from 9% last year — according to Merkle’s Digital Marketing Report Q2 2017. Search ads delivers the best bang-for-buck when it comes to “low-in-the-funnel” prospective customers, across both the B2C and B2C categories, and the ease of use makes it accessible to companies of all shapes and sizes.

Experienced digital marketers know that search engine marketing, primarily Google, has served as the bread-and-butter of online lead generation since the early 2010s. And this category’s continued expansion can be seen as good news for everyone in the digital marketing ecosystem. Though Google remains the bellwether player, brands are looking to expand their digital advertising footprint, and are looking for options beyond Google.

This is partially represented in this analysis, which includes Bing Ads and Yahoo Gemini. Given the sustained efficacy of Google search ads — and breathtaking profits realized by Google — over the past decade or more, it’s notable that it’s taken several years to attract formidable competitors to the category. But it’s great to have Bing (Microsoft) and Yahoo (Verizon) show up for the party. Even though genuinely competitive offerings may be years away, their scale and ability to offer relatively discount price products will help the category as a whole. Digital marketers are also cautiously optimistic that others will be attracted to the category as well, as Google has held sway over the market for too long,

Back to the data. The following are the most pertinent data points from Merkle’s recent research report, and what digital marketing professionals need to understand.

Key takeaways:
  • Q2 2017 saw continued strength for the two major digital marketing platforms as Google search spending growth accelerated to 23% year-over-year (Y/Y) and Facebook budgets continued to grow much more rapidly than the online ad industry as a whole.
  • While mobile continues to be the main engine of spending growth across digital ad platforms, desktop has been pulling more weight for Google in recent quarters; this resurgence began soon after Google began allowing search advertisers to bid separately for tablet traffic and the better performing desktop segment in Q3 2016.
  • Bing Ads and Yahoo Gemini combined search ad spending fell 3% Y/Y in Q2 2017, an improvement from a 14% decline in Q1. Though in absolute terms this news does not optically serve Bing of Yahoo well, this is a relative improvement in a growing marketplace, and excited digital marketing professionals, who have grown weary in recent years of their reliance on Google.
  • Facebook ad spend increased 56% Y/Y in Q2 2017, in line with Q1 growth. Facebook CPC fell 3% Y/Y, while CPMs jumped 57%. A relative new entrant on the scene, Facebook is a force to be reckoned with, especially in the B2C category. Based on CPC rates, Facebook is more than willing to “buy market share” and for good reason. It’s only a matter of time before Facebook figures out how to makes its mark in the B2B sector, where it’s already a significant force outside of the United States.
The Bottom Line

Through their spending, brands continue to  reinforce their estimation of the value and efficacy of text-based search engine marketing advertising. Consumers, both in the B2C and B2C categories, look to search engines to seek out vendors for their needs, ranging from new shoes to cars to enterprise software applications that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And companies continue to push more advertising dollars to the medium because of the success they experience in the channel.

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

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