That's the word according to News Digital Media and their Aspiring Australian's market research.
It tells us that unemployed users of NDM sites spend 6 hours per weekday on the Internet, and 5 hours per weekend day. Total = 40 hours.
Effectively, these people do have a full time job. It's called surfing the net.
So maybe an economic slowdown and higher unemployed rates might be good for digital media consumption ;)
The full report is here - http://media.news.com.au/sales/marketing/pdf/NDMreport03SEP08LO2.pdf
The research is pretty generic, which is disappointing because it's good to see News Digital take the step and try and work out their audience a little better.
There's no new insight into why people use online (real motivations), their usage across different areas (ie maps, video, search, content, contribution), emerging trends or cross media consumption. This is the only first release of the report, and you can be sure it will evolve moving forward as it's released every 3 months.
It does have one statistic that is interesting - that the average NDM user is spending 27 hours, 49 minutes on the Internet per week.
As a figure this feels high to me and surely must be skewed by the respondants being online at work - which needs to be clarified more. Are they 'online' - ie connected - or are they actively using the Internet?
Personally, I work in digital media and I wouldn't be actively online more than 20 hours a week across home and work.
According to Nielsen, the average Internet user in AU spends 14 hours, 34 minutes online per month - which works out to around 3.3 hours per week online.
Who is right? The difference is pretty significant.
Showing posts with label Nielsen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nielsen. Show all posts
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Real Estate sites feeling it as interest rates start to bite
I saw this post on TC about selected US real estate sites bucking the downturn in the market and seeing strong usage increases.
It made me wonder what impact the continuing interest rate rises have had on the Real Estate category online in AU.
We bought a place last year in November, moving in in January and have been bombarded with rate rises since.
However when we were in the market it was white hot. The market for new homes up until the end of December 07 was incredibly competitive.
Take a look at the below graph (taken from Nielsen Netview, July 2008) ...
Real Estate as a category was peaking around January 2008 ... and since Jan has dropped over 15% of users (until July). The trend is evident - and across market leaders Realestate.com.au and Domain as well as the category
You have to wonder what impact interest rates and economic uncertainty has had on this.
I have noticed some real estate sites have been a lot more aggressive in market seeking display advertising - offering very low CPMs to try and woo non real estate/finance clients over to their sites - which might be a consequence of falling revenues for their bread and butter - real estate listings and finance tenancies.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The pre-roll effectiveness discussion continues ...
Interesting post at Silicon Valley Insider on pre-roll full play rates - http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/video-ad-companies-people-love-watching-video-ads-
Talk pre-roll with someone involved in digital media and you'll generally get a robust discussion. Some absolutely loathe the format (mostly agencies and advertisers running of a sample size of 1 - 'I never click on those' etc) and some think it provides a legitimate alternative to Television (generally publishers or ad servers).
(Tremor Media) says only 20% of Web video watchers give up and leave when confronted with the pre-rolls it serves up. Or, as Tremor is putting it in a release later today, 80% watch the ads all the way through.
Not to be outdone, Break Media is claiming an even higher "completion rate" -- 87% -- for its pre-rolls, which includes a whole lot of user-generated video.
What explains their popularity? In part, it's because advertisers geniunely think they're the most effective format available. And in part, it's because pre-rolls look and feel just like the TV ads publishers and advertisers are already comfortable with. Who's going to come up with a better solution? There's a big pot of money waiting...
I don't mind the pre-roll but like all formats it needs to be right for the advertiser. When it's right it's amazing - solus ad unit, fantastic response, engaged audience - all things we're constantly looking for.
However, I do think the pre-roll has four core issues that need to be addressed ...
- generally pre-rolls are just TVCs compressed and do not in any way take advantage of the interactive elements of the medium OR even add start and end frames that push to a web destination.
- 15/30 seconds are probably too long as formats (especially if it's just a TVC). 10 seconds I think is the max.
- why do pre-rolls have to be moving pictures and audio? Why can't they be simple flash builds (like Rich Media Eyeblaster placements, pre-stitials etc)
- a lot of AU online video clips are 45s to 2m long ... extremely short form ... which means that if a 30s TVC runs prior the ratio between advertising content and actual content is a little out of whack.
And these 4 aren't getting any better. Publishers still position pre-roll as a no brainer for TV centric clients. I think this is wrong - very wrong. Most will also buckle and run 30s formats if advertisers kick up enough of a fuss.
Creative agencies still don't take pre-roll seriously either - so they rarely allocate budget to edit a TVC or recut something fresh for a pre-roll/online video placement. Another one for the too hard basket (which is often very full)
Personally in my pre-roll recommendations to our clients I am requesting 5-7s creative MAX. Do we receive this - rarely ... Eventually we will I am sure as there is client interest in the format, however right now this is limited to pro content ... not UGC ... which raises questions about those faciliators of video UGC and how they'll remain afloat. But that's probably worth another post entirely ...
It would be interesting to get audited data on peoples opinions on pre-rolls in Oz. Right now the only groups that have data are the publishers and I can't see them telling the story if it isn't incredibly positive. On a side note, I really hope Nielsen and the IAB are looking at measuring issues like this and putting some science behind it ... What we do know is the format has real potential and the publishers see it as their next cash cow.
Lets invest in some research then ...
Talk pre-roll with someone involved in digital media and you'll generally get a robust discussion. Some absolutely loathe the format (mostly agencies and advertisers running of a sample size of 1 - 'I never click on those' etc) and some think it provides a legitimate alternative to Television (generally publishers or ad servers).
(Tremor Media) says only 20% of Web video watchers give up and leave when confronted with the pre-rolls it serves up. Or, as Tremor is putting it in a release later today, 80% watch the ads all the way through.
Not to be outdone, Break Media is claiming an even higher "completion rate" -- 87% -- for its pre-rolls, which includes a whole lot of user-generated video.
What explains their popularity? In part, it's because advertisers geniunely think they're the most effective format available. And in part, it's because pre-rolls look and feel just like the TV ads publishers and advertisers are already comfortable with. Who's going to come up with a better solution? There's a big pot of money waiting...
I don't mind the pre-roll but like all formats it needs to be right for the advertiser. When it's right it's amazing - solus ad unit, fantastic response, engaged audience - all things we're constantly looking for.
However, I do think the pre-roll has four core issues that need to be addressed ...
- generally pre-rolls are just TVCs compressed and do not in any way take advantage of the interactive elements of the medium OR even add start and end frames that push to a web destination.
- 15/30 seconds are probably too long as formats (especially if it's just a TVC). 10 seconds I think is the max.
- why do pre-rolls have to be moving pictures and audio? Why can't they be simple flash builds (like Rich Media Eyeblaster placements, pre-stitials etc)
- a lot of AU online video clips are 45s to 2m long ... extremely short form ... which means that if a 30s TVC runs prior the ratio between advertising content and actual content is a little out of whack.
And these 4 aren't getting any better. Publishers still position pre-roll as a no brainer for TV centric clients. I think this is wrong - very wrong. Most will also buckle and run 30s formats if advertisers kick up enough of a fuss.
Creative agencies still don't take pre-roll seriously either - so they rarely allocate budget to edit a TVC or recut something fresh for a pre-roll/online video placement. Another one for the too hard basket (which is often very full)
Personally in my pre-roll recommendations to our clients I am requesting 5-7s creative MAX. Do we receive this - rarely ... Eventually we will I am sure as there is client interest in the format, however right now this is limited to pro content ... not UGC ... which raises questions about those faciliators of video UGC and how they'll remain afloat. But that's probably worth another post entirely ...
It would be interesting to get audited data on peoples opinions on pre-rolls in Oz. Right now the only groups that have data are the publishers and I can't see them telling the story if it isn't incredibly positive. On a side note, I really hope Nielsen and the IAB are looking at measuring issues like this and putting some science behind it ... What we do know is the format has real potential and the publishers see it as their next cash cow.
Lets invest in some research then ...
Monday, August 18, 2008
Battelle on Google Ad Planner
John Battelle has an interesting piece about Google Ad Planner on his blog - http://battellemedia.com/archives/004574.php#comments
"The strong bias toward Google network sites is suspicious."
The article is about inconsistencies between the Ad Planner data and Comscore data for the same sites, claiming that Google is potentially favouring sites on their own Ad Network.
"In short: If you were a media planner using Google Ad Planner, and you were looking for larger sites, you would be led to sites that are running Google AdSense, on average, over sites that do not. Net net: This data indicates that Google Ad Planner pushes ad dollars to Google sites over non-Google sites."
I have signed up to the Ad Planner beta in AU and plan to give it a solid test to see how it performs and whether it has potential for agencies. Right now I am suspicious ... a publisher (which Google is more of than not) running audience measurement doesn't sit too well ... but at the same time the Nielsen and Morgan tools are so bad I'm open to alternatives.
"The strong bias toward Google network sites is suspicious."
The article is about inconsistencies between the Ad Planner data and Comscore data for the same sites, claiming that Google is potentially favouring sites on their own Ad Network.
"In short: If you were a media planner using Google Ad Planner, and you were looking for larger sites, you would be led to sites that are running Google AdSense, on average, over sites that do not. Net net: This data indicates that Google Ad Planner pushes ad dollars to Google sites over non-Google sites."
I have signed up to the Ad Planner beta in AU and plan to give it a solid test to see how it performs and whether it has potential for agencies. Right now I am suspicious ... a publisher (which Google is more of than not) running audience measurement doesn't sit too well ... but at the same time the Nielsen and Morgan tools are so bad I'm open to alternatives.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Search users v Display user - the value difference
The new PWC IAB data has been released - to the end of Q1 2008 - and as usual the industry is still showing robust growth driven mainly by increases in search engine marketing spend.
Search is getting very close as a category to being twice as large as display advertising. Display advertising for the 12 months preceeding March 2008 generated 386,500,000 in revenues. Search, for the same period, brought in 665,750,000
Interesting.
We all know the benefits of search. Accountable, contextually relevant, nimble.
It also has the huge advantages of low barriers to entry AND exit. That is important - the costs and procedure associated with pushing a campaign onto Google/Overture are minimal, and you can take it down if it stops working for you.
Can you do this with display? No. That is not how those publishers work. Generally, once the money is in it's not coming out.
I saw yesterday Michael Arrington was trying to value social networks by using a hybrid model of how many users each network had in a particular territory and factoring in the average revenue generated per user from advertising. Problem was, for AU he used the total figure of search, classifieds, directories and display.
If you drill this down further it becomes interesting.
According to Nielsen Netview there are 11,895,000 Internet users in Australia.
On this number, the average user in a display sense is worth $32.49
Using the same number, the average user in a search sense is worth $55.96
Interestingly, the Display revenues are shared amongst countless publishers - up to 100 - who are competing for revenue.
Search revenues are shared by 2 publishers. Google and Overture. I would estimate conservatively that Google is taking around 90% of the search category revenue. This would put Google's revenue at a figure higher than the total display advertising pie. (upwards of $386m)
So - what can the display publishers do to start to even up the game? How can they continue to compete and increase growth and show the value of the medium against its more accountable, performance based text option?
sources: Neilsen Netview, May 2008, PWC - IAB Online Expenditure Report - March 2008
Search is getting very close as a category to being twice as large as display advertising. Display advertising for the 12 months preceeding March 2008 generated 386,500,000 in revenues. Search, for the same period, brought in 665,750,000
Interesting.
We all know the benefits of search. Accountable, contextually relevant, nimble.
It also has the huge advantages of low barriers to entry AND exit. That is important - the costs and procedure associated with pushing a campaign onto Google/Overture are minimal, and you can take it down if it stops working for you.
Can you do this with display? No. That is not how those publishers work. Generally, once the money is in it's not coming out.
I saw yesterday Michael Arrington was trying to value social networks by using a hybrid model of how many users each network had in a particular territory and factoring in the average revenue generated per user from advertising. Problem was, for AU he used the total figure of search, classifieds, directories and display.
If you drill this down further it becomes interesting.
According to Nielsen Netview there are 11,895,000 Internet users in Australia.
On this number, the average user in a display sense is worth $32.49
Using the same number, the average user in a search sense is worth $55.96
Interestingly, the Display revenues are shared amongst countless publishers - up to 100 - who are competing for revenue.
Search revenues are shared by 2 publishers. Google and Overture. I would estimate conservatively that Google is taking around 90% of the search category revenue. This would put Google's revenue at a figure higher than the total display advertising pie. (upwards of $386m)
So - what can the display publishers do to start to even up the game? How can they continue to compete and increase growth and show the value of the medium against its more accountable, performance based text option?
sources: Neilsen Netview, May 2008, PWC - IAB Online Expenditure Report - March 2008
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Nielsen and Morgan face off regarding online measurement
Roy Morgan has launched an attack on Nielsen, specifically citing the latest 2007 Internet and Technology Report has inaccurate.
William Burlace from Roy Morgan told Ad News: ""The Internet is being used more often and by more people. However, to say the Internet is the number one media for Australians . . . is just wrong."
Basically the Morgan and Nielsen figures seem to tell different stories - it's difficult to take any side. Personally it's interesting Morgan is defending it's online measurement when generally it's hit and miss anin terms of depth and relevancy of measurement.
Tony Marlow from Neilsen had this to say to AdNews: "The key objective of the Internet & Technology Report is to provide a reliable comparison of Australians’ attitudes and behaviours surrounding various media and this report is highly effective in this regard. It is in this vein that it is crucial for content publishers across all media as well as their advertisers to understand that the internet is playing an increasingly large role in the lives of the vast majority of Australians and the media time metrics we provide use a consistent comparison across the media measured and we stand by that information,"
AdNews article here (sub. required) - http://www.adnews.com.au/News.cfm?NewsId=4482
William Burlace from Roy Morgan told Ad News: ""The Internet is being used more often and by more people. However, to say the Internet is the number one media for Australians . . . is just wrong."
Basically the Morgan and Nielsen figures seem to tell different stories - it's difficult to take any side. Personally it's interesting Morgan is defending it's online measurement when generally it's hit and miss anin terms of depth and relevancy of measurement.
Tony Marlow from Neilsen had this to say to AdNews: "The key objective of the Internet & Technology Report is to provide a reliable comparison of Australians’ attitudes and behaviours surrounding various media and this report is highly effective in this regard. It is in this vein that it is crucial for content publishers across all media as well as their advertisers to understand that the internet is playing an increasingly large role in the lives of the vast majority of Australians and the media time metrics we provide use a consistent comparison across the media measured and we stand by that information,"
AdNews article here (sub. required) - http://www.adnews.com.au/News.cfm?NewsId=4482
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
