Some interesting stats from Forester Research, detailing the amount of time spent by the average consumer by medium. Predictably, the survey shows time spent on newspapers and magazines way down. 

Full story here.

Forrester: Time Spent on Internet Is Equal to TV

Research already showed younger demos spending more time on the Web than watching TV

Dec 13, 2010

- Brian Morrissey

There’s one graph every digital business uses: It shows the huge gap between the percentage of consumer time spent on the Internet and that of marketer budgets spent on online ads. Forrester Research is giving them new ammunition.

A new consumer survey from the researcher found that for the first year, the amount of time U.S. households spent watching TV and using the Internet is equal at 13 hours per week. This comes on the heels of research showing that younger consumers (18-30) already spent more time on the Web than watching TV. Now, people 31-44 are also spending more time online than with TV.

The figures are at the heart of a running debate about ad-budget allocation. One side is the proposition that marketer priorities are seriously out of whack, because their budgets don’t match up to consumer behavior. Venture capitalist Mary Meeker calls this a "$50 billion opportunity." Another school of thought is that TV remains by far more important to brand building than the typical Internet options of display ads and search links.

Forrester takes pains to note it’s not predicting the demise of TV. In fact, the amount of time spent watching TV has remained stable over the past five years. During that same time, however, time spent on the Web has risen 121 percent. The biggest losers in comparison to the Web are: radio (down 15 percent), newspapers (down 26 percent) and magazines (down 18 percent).

One important note: While the time spent figures are equal, over a third of the hours on the Web are for work purposes, while TV is nearly exclusively a leisure activity.

Unsurprisingly, Forrester found e-commerce and social media the major drivers of growth over the last three years. E-commerce use rose from 37 percent to 60 percent, while social media went from 15 percent to 35 percent.

 

A story in BrandWeek on results of a LinkedIn Research Network/Harris Poll shows some interesting trends in the placement and perception of ads in many mediums. Although the migration of more ads in online media appears alive and well, consumers surveyed don't necessarily respond well to online campaigns, in comparison to other mediums. This makes sense, especially when compared to the results of the survey we posted earlier today on Mediabids' blog. Despite the move to online, print did reasonably well in the survey as a medium typically incorporated in campaigns:

A segment of the polling last month was conducted among people with a professional involvement in the decision-making process about ad campaigns, whether at agencies or client companies. One question asked, "Do you typically incorporate the following types of advertising in your media campaign(s)," with a menu of choices that included Internet, print, radio, TV and cell-phone advertising. The biggest vote went to Internet advertising, with 92 percent of respondents saying they typically use it. Print was close behind, at 88 percent, while radio (46 percent), TV (46 percent) and cell-phone advertising (39 percent) lagged well behind.

If print's strong number in response to that question suggests that the medium isn't in such bad shape after all, just wait. A follow-up question asked the ad professionals to say whether they're using each medium more often, less often as often as they did a year ago. Predictably, the Internet had a strong "more often" vote, at 74 percent, as did advertising via cell phones (69 percent). But while 10 percent of respondents said they're using print advertising more often, 49 percent said they're using it less often. Actually, the responses weren't much cheerier for the old broadcast media: 38 percent said they're using TV less often, vs. 14 percent saying they use it more often; 43 percent said they're using radio less often, vs. 11 percent saying they use it more often.

The story goes on to talk about consumer's impressions of online ads:

Marketing professionals' enthusiasm for online advertising is not altogether shared by consumers. So we gather, at any rate, from a segment of the poll that asked respondents among the general public to offer opinions on how "frustrating" they find various aspects of Internet advertising. Rated as "very frustrating" by 80 percent of these respondents were "Ads that expand on the page and cover the content that you are trying to read." Nearly as many had the same adverse opinion of "ads where you can't find the skip/close button" (79 percent) and "ads that automatically pop up" (76 percent). Smaller majorities applied the "very frustrating" label to "ads that automatically open if you mouse over them" (66 percent), "animated ads playing automatically, with or without sound that distracts you" (60 percent) and "ads that play music/have loud soundtracks" (60 percent).

 

This survey shows some very positive numbers for response from newspaper advertising. Most of the vital stats are below. As we have said before, surveys showing that newspaper advertising works are pretty common. What is not common is the ability to show advertisers that it is working for them. At Mediabids.com, we do this by incorporating unique 800#s into many of the ads we place. This allows us to show the thousands of advertisers who use our website to buy print ads exactly how many responses (at least by phone) they have received. It isn't hard and much of the time the results we show validate the findings of surveys like this (this one from printinthemix.edu), which in the absense of hard data, can seem too good to be true:

July 15, 2009 -- Newspaper advertising remains the leading advertising medium cited by consumers in planning, shopping and making purchasing decisions, according to early data from a MORI Research survey of more than 3,000 adults, conducted on behalf of the Newspaper Association of America (NAA).

This study, part of a series entitled “American Consumer Insights,” examined the impact newspaper advertising has on consumer shopping and spending patterns. Early results indicate:

• Nearly six in 10 adults (59%) identify newspapers as the medium they use to help plan shopping or make purchase decisions
• 82 % of those surveyed said they “took action” as a result of newspaper advertising, including:
  • Clipping a coupon (61%)
  • Buying something (50%)
  • Visiting websites to learn more (33%)
  • Trying something for the first time (27%)
• 73% of adults say they regularly or occasionally read newspaper inserts
• 82% have been spurred to action by a newspaper insert in the past month.

 

Primary Medium for Checking Advertising	2009
Newspapers	41%
Internet	21%
Direct mail	14%
Television	8%
Catalogs	6%
Magazines	3%
Radio	2%
None of these	5%