Media consultant Gordon Muller recently unpacked Nielsen’s SA Digital Consumer Survey at an Ebony + Ivory event. The research offers some fascinating insights into different media types and their interplay with, as well as how each are tracked and compared.
The key takeaway message was: “This study is a recognition that the proliferation of media devices and platforms means the old way, the way I grew up doing media in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, has gone. You cannot think in silos. We have to think about media from a holistic perspective,” stresses Muller.
Some of the findings
A key finding was that brands need to compare the behaviours of different generations (as they vary from Born Frees to Baby Boomers and all in between), and match their marketing strategy with where the generations they are targeting can be found and their behaviours.
Here are some of the main points emerging from the research:
- Digicons (the total people surveyed) spend on average 33 hours a week online across various devices. Born frees spend on average 38 hours a week, while boomers spend on average 21 hours a week.
- Online consumption, which used to be contained in the computer in the home, has now become a ubiquitous behaviour pattern, as younger generations take their digital browsing on the go and to their workplaces.
- 92% of Digicons claim to use the internet whilst simultaneously watching television. To continue to measure TV in isolation, wih mobile dual screening taking place, is obsolete. 67% of Digicons claim to do this on a regular basis.
- 79% of Digicons claim to have seen an advert on some kind or other on a smartphone device. YouTube and Facebook dominate. Born frees are video responsive, irrespective of platform.
- Don’t forget about traditional media, it isn’t dying! For example, born frees have a strong commitment to radio online, but they have an even stronger commitment to traditional radio. Older readers are still bound to print media and ink on fingers’. “You cannot throw out the old media platforms, you have to assimilate them. The average consumer is behaving in a very different manner with continuous, partial attention,” says Muller.
- There are many barriers to online viewing among older generations, including wariness and non-understanding of technology as well as contentedness with television viewing. The only handbrake for online viewing for born frees in South Africa is the cost of data. If that comes down, online viewing for born frees and millennials will go through the roof.
- Muller emphasises that research must stop measuring ‘ships’ (listenership, viewership, readership) and instead measure ‘ers’ (listeners, viewers, readers). The difference is that ‘ships’ are platform specific (radio, television, newspapers and magazines), whereas ‘ers’ are platform agnostic.
Fusing research
Nielsen’s Digital Consumer Survey has been weighted in such a way that it can be fused with the Establishment Survey (ES) hub, allowing media practitioners to compare it and use it in collaboration with other ES-linked research, including BRC RAM, BRC TAMS, PAMS and Nielsen’s BrandScan.
Muller strongly advises that media practitioners do this, as it paints a more thorough, in-depth picture of audiences and how media can target them more efficiently.
For further insights from the Digital Consumer Survey, contact Nielsen.
Follow Michael Bratt on Twitter @MichaelBratt8
