Display advertising is in rude health. The first eight months of 2008 (up to the end of August) saw over 250,000 display advertising campaigns run in Europe, by over 60,000 different advertisers.
Since the beginning of the year, acknowledging a seasonality factor, pretty much every Western European country has experienced a growth in the number of advertisers running display campaigns during the course of the month. This is particularly the case in the Nordic countries where Norway almost doubled (88%) the number of display advertisers from 766 in January 2008 to 1,439 in September 2008. Sweden experienced an 85% growth from 923 to 1,711 whilst Denmark went from 895 to 1,434 – a 60% increase.
]]> The larger markets also saw strong growth, the UK and Germany both experiencing growth of just under a third from around 4,500 in January to around 6,000 display advertisers in September. In comparison, France increased by 31% and Spain by an impressive 66%.Display has come a long way from the days of static banners and advertisers are becoming increasingly creative in their execution. Animation (such as flash) and interactive technologies (being able to select options in the ad before clicking on it) as well as the inclusion of audio and video are becoming common and highlight the power of display advertising as a branding medium.
The latter point highlights the fact that online advertising isn’t all about search and direct response. Display is far more creative, engaging and interactive than search and can actually improve the performance of search when they are used in tandem as various studies, including those from Microsoft and Yahoo!, have shown.
Display is ‘interruptive’ and provides an alternative to search’s ‘anticipatory’ nature. In other words, search is great if a consumer decides to book a holiday, however, it requires that the consumer is in this mode of thinking. In contrast, display can generate that spark where it didn’t exist before; for example, someone reading a story on CNN might see an eye-catching flash banner from Expedia that reminds them to book a holiday, or, the offer is so enticing they think of booking a holiday they hadn’t planned to in the first place.
The power of display as a branding medium is well illustrated by the appearance of car manufacturers / brands as the second biggest display advertising sector in the UK, in terms of ad impressions. Car advertising online is rarely about direct response, yes the ‘call to action’ might be booking a test drive, but consumers don’t purchase cars online. For the automotive sector - one of the biggest global advertisers - online advertising is all about branding.
Mobile phone operators are the biggest display ad sector, racking up 3.3 billion ad impressions in the UK in 2008 up to the end of September. This sector is an extremely competitive one and whilst direct response through search is a relevant and heavily used online ad format, display is a vital branding weapon in the battle to differentiate and increase custom.
By Alex Burmaster | European Internet Analyst | Nielsen Online
]]>UK
Sports is a hugely popular online category in the UK with almost 40% (13 million people) of Britons online visiting a sports website in December 2008. BBC Sport is, far and away, the most popular sports site with around five and a half million British visitors – three times that of its nearest rival, Sky Sports.
Seven of the ten most popular sites are general sports sites with the other three all concerning football. Whilst Premium TV does cover a few different sports, the lion’s share of its audience comes from the websites of the numerous football sites it publishes as part of its deal with the Football League – the second tire league behind the Premiership. Interestingly, it does outperform the official site of the Premier League by a factor of two – garnering almost 1.7 million Unique UK Visitors compared to almost 800,000 for premierleague.com. The other football site that makes the top 10 is the official club website of Liverpool FC.
The sports category leans slightly towards a male audience (making up 57% of the audience) but less so than most other countries. However, like many other countries the 18-34 year old age group is the dominant audience, accounting for over one in every three visitors to sports sites.
]]> FranceL’Equipe Network, which includes websites owned by the well-known ‘L’Equipe’ daily newspaper, is the undisputed leader in the French sports sites rankings with a monthly Unique Audience of 2.7 million. It has double the reach of its nearest rival and also leads by sessions and time spent per person amongst the leading players.
Despite its strong performance in the sector, its popularity is significantly less than that of other top entertainment websites such as the TF1 Network and YouTube (with audiences of 10.3 million and 8.3 million, respectively), and major online retailers like Fnac.com (7.7 million) or La Redoute (6.4 million Unique Audience). However, L’Equipe Network has similar Unique Audience figures to other current events and global news websites such as LeMonde (2.9 million).
The nature of L’Equipe’s three most direct challengers shows the different types of sport publishing stakeholders in the sport market – from TV channels (Eurosport), to pure online players (Sports.fr Network), and telecoms portals (Orange Sports). Web 2.0 operators, such as Myfreesport, which enables visitors to join a virtual community while accessing multimedia and real-time sport news, and the sports offering from leading portal Yahoo! follow close behind.
Groupe Sporever, which publishes sport-specific webzines such as football365.fr, rugby365.fr, breaks into the Top10 due to its proactive strategy of launching specialized pages over the past two years, such as mercato365.com and assimilated sites). In 2007, the group also managed to acquire the broadcasting rights for England’s Premier League matches on the fixed and mobile Internet – a smart move considering the large numbers of French stars plying their trade in England. The group is also currently working on a TV-over-IP project with Orange Sports TV.
In fact, when looking at the top-ranked sports publishers, French sport fans appear to be particularly attracted to sites providing not only sports news but a multimedia approach to information. For example, Dailymotion holds both the 8th and 9th sports due to its dedicated channels (Extreme and Sport). However, the famous video broadcast platform is doing a better job of attracting visitors than keeping them on site for a long time – along with Myfreesport, their two sites have the lowest time per person.
The French Football Federation website finishes the Top 10, reinforcing the importance of football in French viewing habits; furthermore it is the only official soccer association to make the Top 10 amongst the European countries.
Italy
Over one in four Italians online visited a sports website in December 2007 – a two-percentage point increase on December 2006. Six of the Top 10 sites are general sports information sites. The most popular sports site (La Gazzetta dello Sport) comes from the most famous sports newspaper in Italy. The second most famous sports newspaper is Corriere dello Sport, which is the sixth most popular sports site.
Yahoo! Sport, then Virgilio Sport then MSN Sports International are the most visited sports channels from the large portals. The passion for football in Italy is shown by the fact that three of the top ten sports sites are specific football club sites – courtesy of the three main Italian football clubs: AC Milan, FC Internazionale Milano and Juventus Football Club. Compare this with England and Spain which only have one football clubs site in the Top 10 – Liverpool and Barcelona, respectively.
A single betting site occurs in the Top 10 – LiveScore at number eight – which is followed by Calciomercato.com which is a football news and information site. Not surprisingly, considering the plethora of football sites in the Top 10, the demographic profile of the sports audience leans towards men, who make up 70% of the audience. The sports category also ‘over-performs’ on attracting the 18-35 year old demographic – another big traditional audience for football.
Spain
In December 2007 more than 6.3 million Spaniards visited a sports website – one in every three Spaniards online. The audience was split 54% male and 46% female – far less male-orientated than Italy, for example, with 70% of the audience male. However, like Italy, the Spanish sports audience is heavily concentrated towards the 18 and 34 years old age group which accounts for 46% of the audience.
The three most popular sports sites remain Marca, AS and Zeta Sport Network – the top two somewhat correlated with traditional offline media. The content on the most popular sports sites tend to focus on the Spanish football league, results of the football league and then automobile coverage. The latter is pretty much down to the popularity of two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso who drives for Renault. It will be interesting to see how tennis comes to the fore in 2008 based on the rising exploits of Mallorcan tennis star Rafael Nadal.
The other great celebrity in Spanish sports, is of course the rivalry between football clubs Real Madrid and Barcelona. Real Madrid wins the online battle with 361,000 Spanish visitors – the football club site is actually rolled-up into the traffic of the Terra Deportes Network – compared to Barcelona’s 210,000 visitors.
Australia
The Australian Sports category is very seasonal, as you can expect. December in Australia is summer but during the winter, from March through to September, the website of the Australian Football League is the top Australian Sports site. In the summer months, it drops in audience size but still remains amongst the most popular sites.
Fox Sports tends to be the highest property all year-round. Serving content and information on a wide variety of sports means it is able to maintain its audience size as the season’s change. NineMSN’s Wide World of Sport is another property which shares this trait, although it generally does not have as high an audience size as Fox Sports. However, ESPN and NineMSN’s Wide world of Sports are the most popular sports sites in December in Australia – both being general sports sites.
It’s worth mentioning other high ranking Winter sites that don’t perform too strongly in summer/December. These include the official website of the National Rugby League (NRL and other footy sites which are extremely popular in the winter but suffer a severe drop in audience during the summer. During these warmer months, the focus is on various summer sports properties. Cricket (for example, Baggy Green) and surfing and marine forecast (for example, Coastal watch), are also popular during this time.
Despite Australia being known for its sport-loving nation it’s interesting to note that amongst the countries covered in this report, Australia has the lowest reach of sports sites together with Italy – being visited by 27% of their domestic online population. This compares with 44% of Americans, 39% for the British and French, 33% of Spaniards and 32% of Germans.
In terms of demographics, like many other sports audiences around the world the sports category is largely frequented by men (62%), people between the ages of 35 and 49 (33%) and people on a high income (38% from households with an annual income of over AU$100k).
Germany
The leading sports sites in Germany are dominated by general-interest publishers. The four leading sites – T-Online Sport, Kicker, Sport1 and Ardsport – all cover a wide range of sports. Admittedly, the passion for football the Germans are famous for is well reflected in the fact that all of them have football featuring prominently on the landing page of the sports sections. The fifth most popular site is a pure football site, the official club website of Bayern Munich – in partnership with T-Online.
In terms of user engagement amongst the most popular sites, Kicker Online leads the way with almost 27 minutes per visitor during the month of December. Despite the fact it’s the most popular site, T-Online Sport performs the most poorly in terms of time with just over 9 minutes per visitor. It’s safe to say, however, that German sports sites in general have room for improvement in terms of keeping audiences on their sites. One site that does well in this regard is Transfermarkt – which relies heavily on input from its users.
In terms of the audience to the sports sector, Germany tends to be one of the markets most heavily orientated towards men who account for 68% of its audience. This figure is second, amongst the countries covered, only to Italy with a huge 70% of the sports audience being male. In Germany the 35-49 year old age group is the dominant one, accounting for over one-third (36%) of the audience.
USA
Not surprisingly the online US sports sector has one major difference from its European counterparts – the lack of soccer sites. The Top 10 sports sites contain six generalist sports sites, one Fantasy Sports site and the official site from each of the ‘big 3’ sports – football (the US version – the NFL), baseball (MLB) and basketball (NBA).
The sports offering from the Yahoo! portal is the most popular sports site with over 20 million Unique US visitors, closely followed by sports broadcaster ESPN. It is testament to the intrinsic part of sports in American culture that almost half (44%) of Americans online visit a sports site and both the top two sites are visited by one in every eight Americans online. It’s also interesting to note that these two most popular sites are also the most engaging – not a common occurrence – having the highest average time per visitor amongst the leading sites.
In terms of audience, the US audience is of similar composition to the UK in terms of gender with 56% being male. However, unlike many other countries, the 18-34 year old age group aren’t so well represented. The US sports audience tends to overperform on attracting the older demographic, for example, 34% of the US sports audience is over 50 years old compared to 15% in Spain, 19% in Italy, 25% in France, 26% in the UK, and 28% in both Germany and Australia.
By Alex Burmaster | European Internet Analyst | Nielsen Online
]]>The wide-ranging use of the phrase ‘online video’ implies a simple coherent entity. Of course, everything needs a moniker but online video is an incredibly diverse ecosystem in terms of what’s on offer, who’s using it and when.
From an ad format perspective, clients and agencies have recently had some help on making sense of this new medium, with the IAB’s set of industry-wide standards. However, when it comes to online viewer behaviour most are still in the dark – for example “short-form for the young, long-form for the old” is one I’ve heard frequently. MySpace Videos and YouTube are predominantly ‘short-form’ video whilst the iPlayer and 4oD would be ‘long-form’.
]]> True that, in June 2008, MySpace Videos and YouTube ‘over-performed’ on attracting under 18s - i.e. under 18s make-up a greater percentage of YouTube’s audience (13.3%) compared to how much they make-up of the entire Internet audience (11.8%) - whilst BBC iPlayer and Channel 4oD ‘under-performed’ on this group.However, all four significantly over-perform on attracting 18-24 year olds, particularly 4oD with 21% of its audience made-up of this group compared to the 12% they make up of the entire online audience. To challenge the “short-form, young; long-form, old” mantra even more, MySpace Videos is the only one of the four to ‘over-perform’ on attracting 35-49 year olds – and by quite a degree.
There is, however, consistently good news for advertisers and publishers in that all four over-perform on attracting the richest households (BBC iPlayer the most) - hence the importance on getting the ad formats right.
When it comes to actual behaviour things become even more complex – what’s being watched, how often and when? VideoCensus, for example shows that the work lunchtime slot (12-2pm) accounts for around 8-9% of all sports and entertainment video streams yet leaps to account for 14% for all news streams. During the working day (9-5pm) sports streamers will view 10 sports streams, news streamers 11 news streams yet entertainment streamers will view over 30 entertainment streams.
Time spent viewing streams can also differ wildly from sector to sector. For example, as we move from the weekday lunchtime into the afternoon, evening and night, time spent on entertainment streams steadily increases yet for sports streams there is a consistent and steady decrease. Furthermore, during the day at the weekend (6am-8pm) the average sports video streamer will spend 11 minutes doing this, the average news streamer 12 minutes, yet for entertainment streamers it leaps to almost 48 minutes.
These complex, and often contrasting, characteristics require that publishers and advertisers undertake a far more granular look inside ‘online video’ behaviour to truly take advantage of it.
By Alex Burmaster | European Internet Analyst | Nielsen Online
]]>Smartplanet.com is the latest online attempt to tap into the ‘green’ movement. Coming from CNET Networks, the site focuses on comparing ethical and sustainable products.
The site is well laid out and looks like the people behind it certainly know what they’re talking about. It’s not just limited to comparing products – be it organic foods or environmentally friendly cars – but is essentially a portal containing a variety of useful information on ethical living.
]]> On a personal level, like most people, I hope the site succeeds as any initiative which seeks to promote green living should be applauded. The trouble is that green websites, to date, haven’t been overly successful in attracting visitors. Despite the fact that the issues affect us all, and people increasingly discuss sustainability issues in the blogosphere, no site has tapped into this well enough to generate large enough numbers of visitors to attract the ad dollars of the mainstream advertisers.Most of the leading green groups, which one would expect to do best online, such as the Energy Saving Trust, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Fairtrade Foundation still barely register a blip. A sustainable website that has stood out online, however, is Freecycle.org - a grassroots, nonprofit movement of people who exchange goods for free in their own towns with the aim of ‘reusing and keeping good stuff out of landfills’. Currently visited by over 200,000 Britons, it has experienced impressive growth this year.
The green offering from one of CNET’s fellow publishers, AOL’s ‘Go Green’ channel, perhaps gives a better clue as to the potential for smartplanet. It’s currently visited by almost 180,000 people – around one half of one percent of Britons online. Whilst this isn’t a number to be sniffed at, this number of eyeballs is probably only going to be of interest to targeted advertisers around specific green products.
However, advertising around niche interests or lifestyles is a key online theme this year. The plateauing of the large social networks, for example, whilst the niche-interest networks experience strong growth point to a ‘quality not quantity’ advertising focus as opposed to the large blind network buys.
By Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online
]]>Over the last year YouTube replaced Wikipedia as the UKs most popular social media website. Over 10.4 million Britons visited YouTube in January, or, one in every three Britons online. However, most telling was that half of the ten fastest growing social media sites during the last year were video-related. Whilst the majority of the most popular social media sites are the networks, such as Facebook, the fastest movers point to video being the biggest star of the 2008 social media scene.
]]> The fastest growing video social media site was vidShadow, growing 639% from the first time it appeared on the radar in 2007 to January 2008. Veoh, a mixture of consumer and professionally created content, grew 595%, Youku saw a 524% increase in popularity whilst Tudou and Video Jug grew by 250% and 247% respectively. And it’s not just the consumer-generated versions doing well. BBC’s iPlayer outperformed them all, growing by 918% from less than 200,000 UK visitors in August 2007 to over 1.9 million in January 2008. So, why are the video sites doing so well?Firstly, the intensively competitive nature of the UK broadband market means people have had the opportunity to switch to higher bandwidths, making video a more viable option. Secondly, as more video sites spring up, this increases competition which improves the technology available to consumers and results in increased marketing activity and, therefore, awareness in the minds of consumers. Finally, and perhaps, most importantly, all this would be irrelevant if it wasn’t for changing consumer habits. The Internet is now a daily part of life and it is now as natural to turn on a PC as it is to turn on the TV, tune in the radio or open a newspaper. Essentially, people’s mindsets are simply more tuned into watching video online now.
It’s important to be aware that this changing mindset is happening across the board, not just amongst a technologically savvy niche of consumers. YouTube’s audience, for example, is composed in pretty much the same way as the overall Internet audience – only the 12-24 year old age group shows a significant ‘over-indexing’ in YouTube.
However, the demographic that has increased its share amongst YouTube’s audience the most over the last year was 50+ women. This group composed just 4% of YouTube’s audience in Jan 07 but doubled it to 8% in Jan 08. Furthermore, BBC’s iPlayer tends to ‘over-index’ most strongly on older consumers. Almost 25% of its visitors are at least 55 years old – double the percentage that this age group makes up across the entire Internet population.
So, whether it’s people snacking on video clips or feasting on full length TV shows or films, it’s clear that video could be the star everyone is chasing this year.
By Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online
]]>How all UK Internet time is spent provides an excellent overall picture from which to develop a more focused strategy in regards to targeting consumers online.
Despite the current fixation with how to advertise successfully in social networking and video media, together they still only account for around as much time as the most engaging UK Internet sector – Instant Messaging. IM accounts for 12% of all UK Internet time or, if one condensed all UK Internet time into one hour, seven minutes of it would be spent instant messaging.
]]> So, how would the rest of this typical ‘UK Internet hour’ be spent? After spending seven minutes instant messaging, the next five and a half minutes would be spent across social networking and blogging – as 9% of all UK Internet time is spent in ‘Member Community’ sites. Around four and a half minutes would then be spent emailing, as this accounts for 7% of all UK Internet time followed by almost four minutes playing online games (accounts for 6%).Search, ‘Classifieds/Auctions’ (the latter pretty much eBay) and ‘Software Manufacturers’ (dominated by Windows Media Player) would each account for around two and a half minutes - 4% of all UK Internet time. Around two minutes (3% of all UK Internet time) would be spent in each of the traditional, general, portal sector and the ‘Videos/Movies’ sector.
These ten sectors account for 57% of all UK Internet time (or 34 minutes in the typical ‘UK Internet hour’) with the other 43% of time being shared across the 75 other sectors Nielsen Online covers. This, if anyone needed reminding, shows how incredibly fractured Internet consumption is. More importantly, it highlights that one is not just competing with media within your own sector but all forms of online media represent a challenge to people spending time on your own offering.
How all UK Internet time is spent
| Rank | Leading sector by total UK Internet time | % of all UK Internet time | AKA: if all UK Internet time was condensed into an hour, how many minutes would be spent there* |
| 1 | Instant Messaging | 12% | 7 minutes |
| 2 | Member Communities | 9% | 5 ½ mins |
| 3 | 7% | 4 ½ mins | |
| 4 | Online Games | 6% | 4 mins |
| 5 | Search | 4% | 2 ¾ mins |
| 6 | Classifieds/Auctions | 4% | 2 ½ mins |
| 7 | Software Manufacturers | 4% | 2 ½ mins |
| 8 | Multi-category Entertainment | 4% | 2 ¼ mins |
| 9 | General Interest Portals & Communities | 3% | 2 mins |
| 10 | Videos/Movies | 3% | 1 ¾ mins |
| - | Other | 43% | 26 mins |
By Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online
]]>If it goes ahead, the Microsoft and Yahoo merger would be one of the major events in the history of the Internet and a credible attempt to challenge the domination of Google.
Whilst the Google suite of websites (visited by 274 million people globally – 80% of people online) is marginally more popular than Microsoft’s (262 million – 76%) and significantly more than Yahoo!’s (191 million – 56%) it is increasing the gap. From December 2006 to December 2007, Google’s global audience grew by 18%, double that of Microsoft (9%) and almost three times that of Yahoo!’s growth (7%).
]]> It is, of course, search where Google’s real dominance lies. In the US in December 2007, Google accounted for 56% of all searches compared to 18% for Yahoo! and 14% for MSN. In the UK, it is significantly more dominant, accounting for 79% of searches with Yahoo! capturing 7% and MSN just 3%.Even though Microsoft and Yahoo have significant audience overlap (in the UK, for example, 85% of people who visit a Yahoo! property also visit a Microsoft property) and a combined search share that would not catch Google's, they could be positioned to create the next generation of ad networks - one that rivals Google/DoubleClick. It would be a diverse environment, made of up e-mail, search, original content and consumer generated media, where advertisers could maximize their buys over two of the most trusted online brands.
Furthermore, the next great frontier for online advertising revolves around how will it can tackle, or take advantage, of social media. In this regard, the proposed transaction itself would give Microsoft one of the industry's strongest portfolio's in the growing social-media space. This includes Yahoo Answers (visited by 40 million people globally – 12% of people online), Flickr (21 million – 6%), and Delicious (1.4 million – 0.4%), alongside its investment in Facebook (38 million – 11%).
Parent Company Global Metrics: December 2007
| Parent Company | Unique Audience (millions) | Active Reach | % Growth in Unique Audience since Dec 06 | Total Time (millions of hours) | Page Views (millions) |
| 274 | 80% | +18% | 460 | 68,632 | |
| Microsoft | 262 | 76% | +9% | 718 | 27,684 |
| Yahoo! | 191 | 56% | +7% | 418 | 42,073 |
By Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online
]]>Over 85 percent of the world’s online population has used the Internet at some point to make a purchase. Globally, more than half of Internet users have made at least one purchase online in the past month.
When Nielsen conducted its first global survey into Internet shopping trends two years ago, approximately one in ten of the world’s population (627 million people) had shopped online. Within two years, this number has increased by approximately 40 percent (to 875 million).
]]> In our increasingly cluttered lives, consumers are increasingly turning to the unrivalled convenience of the Internet to research and buy products. Globally, the most popular and purchased items over the Internet are Books (41% of recent online shoppers having bought these) followed by ‘Clothing/Accessories/Shoes’ (36%), then ‘Videos / DVDs / Games’ and Airline Tickets (both 24%).The number of recent Internet shoppers buying books over the Internet has increased from 34% to 41% in the past two years but the biggest increase has been in ‘Clothing / Accessories / Shoes’ which increased from 20% to 36%. Some of the biggest buyers of books on the Internet are from developing countries—China, Brazil, Vietnam and Egypt—indicating massive growth potential for online retailers that can specifically target these fast-growing markets.
Whilst European (93%) and North American (92%) Netizens are the most likely to have shopped online, South Korea actually leads the way with 99% followed by the UK, Germany and Japan (all 97%). The U.S is joint eighth with 94% alongside Poland, France and Ireland.
Irish online shoppers have the most varied shopping baskets – averaging purchases from four different categories of products – followed closely by UK and Vietnamese shoppers (both averaging purchases from 3.8 different categories). The strong performance of the Asian market is reinforced by South Korea appearing next – averaging 3.5. The US appears 15th with an average of 3.1 product categories finding their way into Americans shopping carts. In contrast, Canadians averaged only 2.3 categories – putting them in second to last spot ahead of Indonesians.
In terms of how online shoppers choose the sites they buy from, familiarity is the biggest factor, with 60% going to the same site they buy from regularly. This shows the importance of capturing the tens of millions of new online shoppers as they make their first purchases via the Internet. If etailers can capture them early, and create a positive shopping experience, they will likely capture their loyalty and their money.
Nowhere is familiarity or habit more important than in Asia. Online shoppers in China (75%), Taiwan (73%) and Japan (70%) are the most likely to cite this factor. In comparison, 63% of Americans (8th most likely country) and 61% of Britons (11th most likely country) cite this as a factor.
Following behind familiarity (60%), online shoppers around the world also select their shopping sites through general surfing (33% citing this as a factor) followed by search engines (31%) and special offers (30%).
General surfing as a factor is strongest in Denmark (56%) Chile and Poland (both 51%), whilst search engines are most likely to play a part in the shopping process in Vietnam (63%) and Russia (57%). In contrast Taiwanese (54%) and Indians (48%) are the most likely to be swayed by a special offer.
It is interesting that, globally, personal recommendations and shopping directories (both 23%) are equally strong factors. The explosion in Consumer Generated Media over the last year indicates this reliance on word of mouth, over other forms of referral, could well increase. Clearly, however, any global retail strategy requires significant adaptation for local market nuances.
By Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online
]]>Between them, the thirty leading video and TV streaming websites attracted almost 13 million Britons in December 2007 – almost 40% of the UK Internet population. This is a 70% growth in audience numbers since December 2006 and highlights how well the online video sector is doing; the Internet audience itself grew by ‘just’ 14% across the same period.
So what types of video are proving popular; what are people watching and what are they linking to? The latter part points to the issue of ‘virality’ and measures the most popular videos in terms of links – as opposed to straightforward views. This is a key point for advertisers and publishers when it comes to understanding the holy grail of marketing – what makes people actually generate word-of-mouth.
]]> BlogPulse publishes the most linked-to videos on a daily basis and this highlights the ever-changing nature of consumer-generated media. The list is never the same two days running. The most linked-to video on Monday 21st January was ‘People in Order’ - part of a series of short films that assembles the people of Britain in a given order. This part contains 100 people arranged according to their age, starting from one.The day before, the honour went to Ooedo no Hikeshi’s Japanese version of Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’. On that day ‘People in Order’ was down in 22nd spot whilst Hikeshi dropped to fourth spot the day after. What is consistent, however, is the sheer variety of the leading sites. Aside from ‘People’ and Hikeshi, last Monday’s top videos involved leaders such as Martin Luther King, George Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, tutorials on the Wii Remote and Photoshop plus offerings on human rights and re-creating war.
Most linked-to videos: January 21st 2008
| Rank | Video | Website |
| 1 | People in Order | YouTube |
| 2 | Martin Luther King’s "I have a dream" | YouTube |
| 3 | President Bush pardons himself against potential war crimes | YouTube |
| 4 | Ooedo no Hikeshi - Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’ | YouTube |
| 5 | Comedian Anne Roumanoff on Sarkozy and Carla | Dailymotion |
| 6 | Dying 47-Year-Old Professor Gives Exuberant ‘Last Lecture’ | Google Video |
| 7 | Richard Hammond presents Bloody Omaha | YouTube |
| 8 | Ezra Levant's opening statement at the human rights commission | YouTube |
| 9 | Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the Wii Remote | YouTube |
| 10 | You Suck at Photoshop #1 | YouTube |
By Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online
]]>Public Relations should already own word-of-mouth. PR people were the first ones to really understand the value in measuring consumer-generated media online and the impact person-to-person conversations could have on a brand or issue. Word-of-mouth (WOM) also fitted nicely into the PR discipline, being based on trust, mutual relationships and, often, influential people.
However, PR didn’t end up dominating WOM. A few cutting-edge PR firms took it seriously but, overall, the industry coasted and other marketing disciplines caught up. However, it’s not too late for PR to claim the growing budgets now materialising but it is dependent on a shift in thinking and approach.
]]> PR has three main advantages. Firstly, WOM marketing is all about relationships – a core competency of PR and its dominant pillar. Brands trust PR people to manage relationships with influential people such as journalists, analysts, thought-leaders and industry bodies. WOM marketing is similar, built largely on managing relationships with influential members within communities of interest. Unlike PR, other marketing disciplines know a lot about broadcasting one-way messages but little about the intricate nature of managing relationships and developing individual conversations.Secondly, the PR industry has great experience in managing communications where messages are disseminated via unpaid channels such as news media and briefings. PR professionals strategically employ these uncontrolled and, often, participatory avenues to reach and influence target audiences - often more successfully than paid channels.
Finally, PR has fine-tuned the art of dissecting the essence of brands and issues, to position them in a credible way so people will want to talk about them in a certain way. Advertising people are experts at creating positioning in a controlled push-media model but one could argue that PR people are most effective at creating positioning that resonates with sceptical influencers. The latter are the gatekeepers of consumer-generated media, controlling reach and when and how a brand message is passed along to others.
However, PR also has challenges to overcome. Firstly, research and consumer databases must become a core competency as it already is for media planners, advertisers and direct marketers. WOM marketing requires continuous tracking as consumers are in control – often causing messages and perceptions to be fluid and unpredictable. Therefore, continuous research is required throughout a brand’s entire lifecycle to tweak messages appropriately. Moreover, research and databases enable you to achieve scale and track effectiveness in WOM strategies. These are critical elements to justify large budgets and are a primary concern among many brand marketers.
Secondly, PR must move out of its ‘media-relations’ box to include a more holistic grasp of the entire communications mix beyond just journalist relations. WOM is interconnected to all other channels such as advertising, promotions, direct mail, customer service and the product itself. A larger share of the WOM budget pie requires thinking from this perspective. PR must also branch out beyond the corporate communications department because WOM marketing budgets live with the brand teams.
Finally, PR must invest in its digital-media knowledge and capabilities. The Internet is multiplying the value and impact of word-of-mouth at a rapid pace and resulting in a massive reservoir of consumer-generated media that continues to become a greater source of the content people consume in their daily lives. The big opportunity for PR lies in leveraging its existing competencies; to pair them with a commitment to the methodologies, tools and concepts to keep up with this rapidly evolving landscape.
By Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online
]]>Word of mouth media is coming of age. ‘Social’ content, as a rival to ‘professional’ content, has two key implications for media and advertisers. (I caveat my labelling of ‘social’ and ‘professional’ in the knowledge that the former can be of a higher standard than the latter.)
Not only does ‘social’ content provides competition to ‘professional’ content for the eyes and ears of consumers but it crucially provides an alternative and unadulterated, point of view. What you might call the unvarnished truth. It’s not just how much is being said, but what is actually being said. Whilst this isn’t revelatory to the follower of the social media phenomenon the degree to which socially created content is starting to overshadow the professional version probably is.
]]> Between September 2006 and 2007, the twenty most popular social media sites have almost tripled their share of voice from 5% of all UK web page views to 14%. Theoretically, if this growth rate continued, professional content online would disappear before September 2009. Of course, this won’t happen (and it does ignore the fact that media owners are contributing professional content to social media - dedicated pages on MySpace or video clips on YouTube, for example) but it does highlight the burgeoning footprint of social media.At the time of writing, according to BlogPulse, there are currently over 63 million English-language blogs globally. The last 24 hours have seen 93,000 new blogs and almost 830,000 new blog posts. That’s an awful lot of opinion the professionals aren’t in control of – coming from a lot of different people.
A recent Nielsen survey on the attitudes of online consumers around the world towards advertising, showed the most trusted form of advertising was ‘recommendations from other consumers’ – being cited by 78% of respondents. Furthermore, the third most trusted form of advertising (behind adverts in newspapers at 63%) was ‘consumer opinions posted online’ - being trusted by 61%.
The latter, in effect, means that six in every ten of your potential consumers will trust the recommendation of someone online they don’t know when it comes to deciding which of your products or services to buy. They’re more likely to trust these than your brand website, ads you place in magazines, on TV or radio or before movies, more than emails or texts they receive from you, sponsorships you engage in, search engine ads or banner ads that you place. Brand Association Maps (BAM) which plot language, attributes and issues around a topic show that, for ‘advertising’, attributes like “false”, “deceptive” and “misleading” are highly associated.
What people are saying about you can have more effect than all of your marketing activities, so it’s vital to understand what is being said and the sentiment behind it – the ‘buzz’. Our studies in the US have shown that monitoring ‘buzz’ can be like a digital version of a crystal ball when it comes to sales. For example, a well-known pet food manufacturer in the US was consistently cited in the same percentage of blogs until early March this year when suddenly its share of buzz increased twenty-fold in just two-weeks due to a contaminant scare.
This increase in negative buzz preceded a drop in sales by one week and the buzz spike coincided with a 50% drop in sales. So whilst it’s difficult to control what people are saying about you, by monitoring the buzz it can give you a fighting chance, a window, in which to develop appropriate counter-strategies. Word of mouth continues to grow unabated but so does your chance to improve from it.
By Alex Burmaster, European Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online
]]>Our recent announcement promoting total time as the key user engagement metric, over more traditional measures like the page view, has created a lot of buzz. Historically, the page view has been the currency of online advertising, so, naturally, publishers have been asking what the shift to total time means for them.
New technologies make the page view a less relevant guide of how users are behaving online. These technologies - such as Rich Internet Applications (e.g. AJAX), Flash and streaming (content and audio/video) – mean users consume less content through successive reloaded pages of ‘static’ content.
]]> The user experience becomes more fluid and dynamic – watching a ten minute news video as opposed to reading ten pages of text, for example. So whilst the page view remains important, the industry has to look elsewhere for a more equitable advertising ‘currency’ – hence ‘time’.So how does the landscape – the share-of-voice between different online sectors – change when focused on time not page views? It’s worth clarifying we are dealing with genuine ‘in-focus’ time; it’s only the single browser tab/ application in focus that is credited with time - regardless of how many are open at any moment.
The ‘Search Engines, Portals and Communities’ category loses share of voice – accounting for 26% of all UK page views compared to 17% of total ‘in-focus’ time. It’s overtaken by ‘Telecoms/Internet Services’ that doubles its share of voice (mainly due to Instant Messaging) - from 13% of all page views to 25% of all minutes – and ‘Entertainment’ which accounts for 21% of minutes (compared to 19% of pages).
Time is about consistency; it brings all web environments into play – including those marginalised by the page-view such as applications, videos and games. Not surprisingly, these show the biggest leaps in share of voice when shifting to time.
Instant Messaging sites account for just 0.4% of all UK page views but account for over 13% of total time. Games site’s share doubles from 2.6% of pages to 5.4% of time. ‘Software manufacturers’ and ‘Multi-category Entertainment’ sites, which include applications like Windows Media Player and iTunes, are the other beneficiaries of a ‘time’ landscape – ‘Software manufacturers’ making up just 1% of page views but 5% of time.
Time gives a more complete view of the whole Internet to the advertiser, showing how fragmented Internet consumption really is, and illustrates how important it is for publishers to evaluate the changes these RIA technologies bring. Time is a nudge to publishers that the priority should be improving the user experience, and a re-assurance this can be done without necessarily reducing ad inventory. After all, advertisers want to be shown an engaged user-base and an effective and efficient platform to target them.
By Alex Burmaster | European Internet Analyst | Nielsen Online
]]>Much has been debated over the last month about the state of the social networks in the UK, particularly the “Big 3” – MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. Conjecture has centred on who’s the biggest, who’s growing the fastest and who’s really using them – so it would be useful to set a few things straight.
So, who is the biggest? In the UK, this is still very much MySpace. An April Unique Audience of 6.8 million makes MySpace almost twice as popular as Bebo, who had 3.6 million. Facebook’s 2.7 million Unique Visitors means, at current growth rates, Bebo is more likely to be caught by Facebook than to overtake MySpace. Over the last six months, Facebook’s audience has grown by a whopping 502% compared to a still very healthy 33% for Bebo and 30% for MySpace. In context, the active UK Internet population has grown by just under 7% in the same period.
]]> Of course, these figures don’t exist in isolation. It’s interesting to note that there is considerable overlap of audience between the three brands. For example, a quarter of MySpace’s visitors also visit Bebo, a quarter also visit Facebook. The biggest overlap of audience amongst the three concerns Facebook and MySpace – 60% of the former’s audience also visit the latter. In fact, over 400,000 Britons visited all three of them.Overall, MySpace was visited by 22% of all Britons online in April, Bebo by 11% and Facebook by 9% - but who’s really visiting these sites - how are their audiences composed? In terms of their affinity with the genders there isn’t too much difference. Bebo (52% female) and Facebook (51% female) both have slightly female-centric audiences whilst MySpace’s is slightly male-centric (52% male).
Bebo remains the most popular with kids and teenagers. Almost a third (32%) of their audience is under 18, compared to 14% for MySpace and just 5% for Facebook. One would expect such a low figure for Facebook as it’s mainly targeted at the university and beyond crowd – 70% of their audience is aged 18-34, compared to almost half (49%) for MySpace and 35% for Bebo.
Whilst most are aware that MySpace has the greatest affinity with those aged 35 and upwards – 37% of their audience fall into this bracket – many will be surprised to know that Bebo has a greater concentration of this age group than Facebook. One third of Bebo’s visitors are at least 35 years old compared to one quarter of Facebook’s. However, this, perhaps, is because parents are more likely to check out the sites their young and teenage children are using than those visited by their offspring who have probably flown the nest.
By Alex Burmaster | European Internet Analyst | Nielsen Online
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