Captivating Connections.

is content bad for your budget?

There's something about seamlessly buying and downloading content like music, movies, and books that makes you forget you're actually spending (real) money on it. I used to be a major offender of, um, filesharing music, and now I can't stop buying random songs from iTunes. It all seems pretty harmless - a song here, a song there - until I get my bill and I realize just how much I racked up.

For some reason, until I get the bill, I forget I'm actually spending money on the content, and probably don't need all these songs I won't listen to after a week. Part of me thinks "meh, it's less than 1 or 2 dollars," while another part of me thinks "isn't that how people ruin their budgets? By minor purchases here and there?"

I'm not the only one concerned about this. According to AICPA, "more than 40% of Americans download and pay for digital content, and they’re spending more money on them than they ever have."

But do they have this money to spend? Jordin Amin, chair of the AICPA’s national CPA financial literacy, says it best when he says, “one of the concerns we have is that it’s very easy to make these purchases without a budget or an overall financial plan.”

It's true. Do people not 'count' content they download as a real purchase because it's not in tangible DVD, book, or CD form? One could argue that it's cheaper to buy a song vs. an album, or a digital version of a book than a physical paperback, but do we justify more purchases when they are only a tap or swpire away?

What do you think?

does (screen) size matter?

According to Chadwick Martin Bailey (CMB), when it comes to content, consumers aren't so picky about their screen size. This is quite different from research we have seen the past few years, which note that consumers have been increasing their comfort around different sized screens but still had their preferences.

CMB found that "58% of people who viewed programming on a tablet did so in their homes -- and of these, 63% did so even though the program they were watching was available on their televisions." Meanwhile, while "74% of consumers ages 16-29 had watched programming online, 39% of consumers 50-75 had also watched a television program or movie online. And their preferred method of watching such programming is either through a network Web site (27%) or Netflix (24%). Only 12% of consumers said they watched through their TV provider’s Web portal (such as Comcast’s Xfinity.com)."

What does this mean? Peter Fondulas, founder of Fondulas Strategic Research, which worked on the project with CMB, explains that “the big media companies have been comforted in this notion that the biggest available screen is always going to win in any situation. That may have been true a while ago, but people have become more open to devices and may even prefer [smaller screens] in some situations.”

What do you think?

who is the tablet shopper (hint: it's not a dude).

Accprding to Zmags, "more consumers who own tablets tend to like to shop, and make more spontaneous purchases than consumers who do not own tablets, the survey finds. Tablet owners also tend to be more intent on making purchases."

So who are these shoppings?

"14% of consumers who own tablet computers, such as an iPad or Android device, classified themselves as spontaneous shoppers compared with 9% of those who do not own a tablet. 9% of tablet owners said they were addicted to shopping, compared with 3% of those not owning a tablet. More tablet owners—9%--said they tend to buy luxury items than non-tablet owners, 3%, the survey found.

Tablet owners are more likely to shop for certain products than others. Electronics, at 53% of all respondents, topped the list of most-preferred products to buy using a tablet, followed by books, 41%, toys, 39%, clothing, 27%, and music, 33%."

What else?

"The survey also found that the typical tablet owner is 40 years old with an average annual household income of $63,000. 52% of tablet owners are women and 81% of all tablet owners use Facebook. On average, a tablet owner spent $325 during the survey period."

What does this mean for you? According to Sean Ford, Zmags chief operating of “We’re seeing a rise in the importance of the tablet as true vehicle to drive commerce."

youtube & disney make magic.

Disney & YouTube are coming together for an interesting partnership:

"The deal, set to be announced on Monday, is small on its surface: Disney Interactive Media and YouTube, a division of Google, will spend a combined $10 million to $15 million on original video series; those shorts will be produced by Disney and distributed on a co-branded channel on Disney.com and YouTube. The channel will also include amateur video culled from the torrent uploaded to YouTube daily.

But the alliance is striking because of what it tacitly acknowledges about each company’s weaknesses.

Disney, currently working on yet another overhaul of its Web site, is conceding that its own brand is not a powerful enough draw among children looking for video online; YouTube is viewed as being cooler.

So in a reversal of a go-it-alone Web strategy, Disney will go fishing for youngsters on YouTube in addition to making YouTube a prominent part of its own site — something that the company hopes will coax children to stay longer."

WSJ debuting e-book bestseller list.

How awesome is this?

"The Wall Street Journal has expanded its relationship with Nielsen BookScan to add e-book sales reporting to its customized best-seller charts. The new charts debut Saturday, October 29, and will appear weekly as part of WSJ Weekend, the Journal’s weekend edition, in print and on WSJ.com."

are your kids a part of the ‘app gap’?

Is the 'app gap' the new digital divide?

You’ve probably seen the video with the kid who doesn’t understand how to read a magazine, swiping it like you would a tablet. You may have laughed, you may have cringed, but you probably realized that this may be a part of children’s’ reality today.

 

According to research by Common Sense Media, not only are children under 8 are spending more time than ever in front of screens, but there’s an “emerging ‘app gap’ in which affluent children are likely to use mobile educational games while those in low-income families are the most likely to have televisions in their bedrooms.”

 

What’s this reality look like? Focusing on apps, thefirm found that “almost half the families with incomes above $75,000 had downloaded apps specifically for their young children, compared with one in eight of the families earning less than $30,000. More than a third of those low-income parents said they did not know what an ‘app’ — short for application — was.”

 

earth-shattering findings: women are master social media communicators

Harris Interactive did a study looking at how people use social media as a communication tool. What did they find?

"Women now dominate men in their use of social media as a communication tool."

BOOM!

"Among online adults, 68% of women now communicate via social media, compared to 54% of men in the United States. By Harris Interactive's estimation, that translates to approximately 75 million women who communicate with friends using social networks versus 57 million men."

So, basically, us women are killing it as master communicators. 

check out who's #winning in the media ad landscape.

We know that the media landscape has drastically changed over the past years and decades (duh - hello Internet!). But what's interesting is how these changes have impacted the advertising landscape. Using a slew of resources, MediaPost has composed a list of the Winners and Losers of these changes, and why they've earned their rankings...

So, in their own words...

"Winning Like Charlie Sheen: The Internet

Unless they happened to be living under a rock for the last decade, most marketers know that digital advertising has held first place in terms of growth -- still dominated by the Internet, but now growing to include ad-supported media delivered via mobile Web and apps

First Runner-Up: Cable TV

After the Internet, cable TV has enjoyed the biggest expansion among all media in terms of ad revenue and share, jumping from just $58 million in 1980 -- or less than 1% of total ad spending -- to $27.1 billion in 2010, a 17.4% share.

Second Runner-Up: Outdoor

In terms of total revenue, outdoor advertising has grown slowly -- but steadily -- since Universal McCann started tracking advertising spending in the first half of the 20th century. But its share of total ad spending has fluctuated quite a bit over this period: from 2.5% of all ad dollars, the proportion slowly fell to its lowest point at 1.28% of the total in 1999 -- then suddenly rallied to around 4% by 2007, where it remains.

Hanging In There: Broadcast TV

The majority of TV ad revenue continues to come from traditional broadcast advertising, which grew steadily until recent years. Between 1980 and 2007, TV ad revenues increased from $11.5 billion to $47.1 billion. But the recession hit hard and 2010 revenues, at $44 billion, were still below their earlier peak.

Feeling Threatened: Radio

Like broadcast TV, radio was already a mature medium in 1980, with a two-decade lead on its younger broadcast sibling. As a result, its growth in previous years, while steady, was less spectacular -- and it suffered more substantial losses beginning in the middle years of the last decade, as the rise of the Internet combined with the recession to threaten broadcast revenues.

Feeling Threatened: Magazines

Based on the changes in ad spending over the last couple of years, magazines are in a similar situation: like radio, competition from online advertising was already making itself felt before the recession hit, and the economic downturn has only served to accelerate the process.

Under Siege: Newspapers

Magazines are at least faring better than their print cousins in the newspaper industry, which grew alongside other traditional media during the 1980s and 1990s, but then witnessed a breathtaking decline over just the last few years."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

do you consider tv to be your friend, sibling, or lover?

BBDO Worldwide and Microsoft Advertising just showcased an interesting new research study looking at the Jungian archetypes of digital screens to see how consumers really feel about them. 

What'd they find?

TV: "Consumers polled think of TV as a kind of 'everyman, an old friend' -- an essentially passive 'person' that is comfortable in your home. People over 45 are more likely to prefer watching programs or movies on TV (whereas people under 30 watch all sorts of video on their computer)."

PC: "People think of the PC as an older sibling -- 'someone' that people can learn from, show off to, and compete with."

Mobile: "The mobile device represents 'a new lover,' per the companies, since it is the most personal device and something consumers want with them at all times. It is still new, and its archetypal appeal cuts across cultures."

will gen ys tune out of pay TV?

"A new study says pay TV programmers are at risk of losing young TV viewers/consumers 18-29 -- so-called Generation Ys, about 70 million strong -- due to growing price sensitivities for all kinds of subscription television. Pay-TV networks monthly prices are added on top of existing packages for basic cable programming channels.

A study by independent research group for Ideas & Solutions!, a marketing consultancy, says 69% of the on-the-fence young cable customers, classified as "at-risk" responders, and 61% of those described as 'leaners,' say the expense of pay-TV networks is the main reason they would consider discontinuing their service.

An added concern: this cable demo also notes there are other alternative ways of watching entertainment content.

Those 'at risk' consumers -- cord-cutting cable, telecom or satellite providers -- use Netflix and Hulu nearly 50% of the time. But when looking at the strong proponents of pay TV networks -- which the study calls 'loyalists' -- only 29% use Netflix and 25% watch TV via Hulu.

Those in between 'at risk' and 'loyalist' pay TV consumers -- 'leaners' -- use Netflix and Hulu, around 42%.

Glen L. Friedman, president and founder of Ideas & Solutions!, stated: 'This is the demographic that completely transformed the music and the phone business and has already started to dramatically reshape the pay-TV ecosystem.'"