Suggesting that media is past due on shifting its focus to online promotion, a new study reveals that broadband users are spending nearly half their spare time online – and the other half becoming paler and fatter.
Marketers Not Investing Enough Online
I added the last part.
The report was put together by Media-Screen, who titled it Netpop | Play, following Avenue A | Razorfish‘s preference for confusing vertical bars between nonsensical, hard-to-remember nomenclatures.
Regardless of titles, the report is pretty interesting and notes that over half (54%) of that half-spare-time is spent accessing entertainment and communication functions on the Web.
The study’s authors say the media habits of the modern human are shifting as the days of iTunes, YouTube, and MySpace come in to full fruition.
“Users’ ability to ‘pull’ information and content associated with their favorite genre, artist or title changes the marketing game from gross ratings points to access and advocacy,” says Josh Crandall, managing director of Media-Screen.
“Many broadband consumers go online for entertainment, and to talk about entertainment with other fans. Marketers need to leverage that interest and focus on catalyzing a conversation now, instead of just talking to their fans via traditional advertising channels.”
The younger crowd, whom advertisers love because of all that disposable income, are especially reachable online. Nearly half (48%) of younger users say they learn about new entertainment through user-generated sites like YouTube (a fair rebuttal to media companies’ tendency to guard their content so iron-fistedly).
In contrast, only a quarter of these younger broadband users say they learn about new entertainment through television. And that makes sense considering most of us pick just a few channels to watch and stick with them (a la carte programming anyone?). It will be especially interesting to watch what happens once television and the Internet are fully converged.
With this major sea change in mind, Media-Screen is encouraging marketers to more aggressive to move their ad dollars online.
“Currently, the proportion of advertising resources devoted to the Internet (about seven percent according to ZenithOptimedia) is nominal relative to the value it generates in interest and engagement among fans,” said Crandall.
“We have found that consumers, on a typical weekday, spend more than 40% of their time consuming media online. As more of the population goes online and there are more marketing channels, it will be imperative for the entertainment industry to know how to effectively allocate marketing and advertising dollars.”
