People Spend 492 Minutes A Day On Media
- by Larissa Faw , June 1, 2015
People are spending a lot of time watching cat videos and Facetiming with friends.
Around the world people will spend 492 minutes -- or more than eight hours a day -- consuming media this year, up 1.4% from 485 minutes a day in 2014, according to ZenithOptimedia’s (ZO) Media Consumption Forecasts.
This increase will be driven by the rapid growth in Internet use, which will increase by 11.8%.
“The average person already spends half their waking life consuming media,” said Jonathan Barnard, ZenithOptimedia’s (ZO) Head of Forecasting. “But people around the world are clearly hungry for even more opportunities to discover information, enjoy entertainment and communicate with each other, and new technology is supplying these opportunities.
"Technology also enables brands to communicate with and learn from consumers in new ways. We expect media consumption to continue to grow for the foreseeable future, multiplying the opportunities for brands to develop relationships with consumers,” he adds.
Global media consumption increased from an average of 461.8 minutes a day in 2010 to 485.3 minutes a day in 2014, an increase of 5.1%, or an average of 1.2% a year. Media consumption is highest in Latin America, where people spent an average of 744 minutes consuming media in 2014, and lowest in Asia-Pacific, where consumption averaged just 301 minutes that year.
Time spent in front of screens continues to evolve over the years. Television remains by far the most popular screen option, generating 183.9 minutes of consumption a day in 2014. Television accounted for 42.4% of global media consumption in 2010, and 37.9% in 2014. ZO says it will still account for more than a third (34.7%) by 2017.
Still, ZO says one big surprise from its report is that TV has been on a consistent global downtrend since 2010, expecting TV to only have started to decline at about 2013. This shows the value of having hard global data to correct our general impressions, says Barnard.
Internet consumption now ranks second, clocking in with 109.5 minutes per day. Newspapers have suffered the most from competition from the Internet, followed by magazines. Between 2010 and 2014, the average time spent reading newspapers fell by 25.6%, while time spent reading magazines fell 19.0%. In fact, the consumption of every traditional medium including newspapers, magazines, television, radio and cinema has fallen between 2010 and 2014, directly because of competition from the internet, and ZO expects their decline to continue to 2017.
It's not expected to improve for most of these traditional media. Between 2014 and 2017, ZO expects newspaper consumption to shrink by an average of 4.7% a year, while magazines and TV shrink at average rates of 4.4% and 1.6%, respectively.
However, it is important to note that these figures only refer to time spent with these media in their traditional forms -- with printed publications and broadcast programs watched on television sets. Any time that consumers spend with broadcasters’ and publishers’ online brand extensions is included in the Internet total, reports ZO.
Out-of-home media is a bright spot for advertisers. The amount of time people are exposed to outdoor advertising increased by 1.2% between 2010 and 2014, from 106.0 to 107.2 minutes a day. ZO says this is because there are "more displays being built in public spaces, migration to cities in emerging markets, and consumers’ greater willingness to spend their leisure time out of the home as their disposable income recovered after the financial crisis. Between 2014 and 2017 we expect exposure to outdoor advertising to increase by 0.2% a year," says ZO.
Looking forward, ZO forecasts that between 2014 and 2017, the amount of time spent consuming media around the world will increase by an average 1.4% a year, reaching 506.0 minutes in 2017. Meanwhile, Internet consumption will grow by 9.8% a year to reach 144.8 minutes a day. The Internet’s share of overall media consumption will rise from 12.9% in 2010 and 22.6% in 2014 to 28.6% in 2017.
Newspapers and magazines are not in competition with the Internet. Their content IS the Internet.
Here is what the study says: Folks love content and media and media consumption time is up ! Demand for media is higher than it has ever been. People are now consuming more of it on more screens so TOTAL readership is up and happening for a brand across platform - a newspaper IS a Web site and a radio station and a TV station and event marketing. Madison Ave must begin to buy it that way to drive clients’ sales. Building partnerships - true 360-degree editorial and content-driven, trusted partnerships with trusted editorial brands and getting your digital spending nailed down around quality content and doing trusted content marketing on quality media and for example, in quality segment media (Hispanic, Black, women, Fashion, LGBT) will be crucial to driving clients' sales. Abandoning all traditional media for robot eyeballs to pad the financial statements of a large agency conglomerate is not the solution as this study's "conclusions" imply. The silos between PR, and types of media need to be eliminated from the Media buying landscape because currently most of Madison Ave doesn't even have the digital team and the "print" team working in the same city let alone really dealing in a 360-degree way with consumers' voracious appetites
Media is the new religion. Folks are seeing and they are doing it via information and demand for real, trusted media. People are not robots. The focus needs to be on #engagement and #ROI and viewability. Segments and winning emotionally - really connecting with focus will be more important than ever as folks are more desirous of content and more distracted. Hispanic, women, black, transgendered connections that are authentic and not just about scale and the traditional definition of efficiency that does not focus on growing clients' sales needs to be removed from the conversation. Media planning and buying should be about beautiful storytelling done with trusted brands who will stand by their content and the story(ies) their client(s) is/are trying to tell. This will be more important than ever. The study says people are consuming more content, that their DEMAND for ALL media, especially the good stuff, is up. Traditional media is the media with all the ingredients on the label. It is the trusted media in the conversation.
Folks are seeking and they are doing it via information and demand for real, trusted media.
We in media do not have a DEMAND problem. Clients need to understand this and not abandon traditional media AND rather invest in quality media, segment media, trans-media. When demand for something is up you do not abandon it, you invest against it. If your agency vendor "partner" cannot get on board with that there are smaller players and media outlets such as ours who act as agencies. We also work with the agencies to help them see this is what needs to happen and to help them more easily do this. Engagement is and will become more important than ever. To get this engagement client and agency must invest in real storytelling and product development in trusted media brands in a 360-degree way and in target segments- Hispanic, women, LBGT, transgendered, etc. Buying in silos of digital vs. events vs print and buying robot eyeballs will not work to drive clients' sales. Creating custom solutions with publishers that focus on storytelling and brand building and emotional connections TRANS-media will drive sales. It is not about just spending more rather really looking at the spending and what it is doing and why it is being done and making adjustments to test and learn. Media and quality information that build trust ARE the new religion in an increasingly secular society. Brands and companies who succeed in building loyalty around this seeking, this somewhat "religious" seeking of information will be essential to driving clients' sales growth and building brands in the hearts and minds of consumers who are seeking.
Folks are seeking connections with brands through content and trusted media and calling out the "death of real media" in this context is incorrect. The best media outlets and companies are now community influencers, their brands remain incredibly valuable, which is why no not all work can be done on three digital brands of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. Folks LOVE content MORE THAN EVER; they LOVE and need trusted media more than ever, and especially good, branded content. Is it really true that folks are only reading Facebook and YouTube? If this is the case why are those companies unwilling to share any of their independent viewability data? Should all video really be posted there or maybe should be posted on the Web sites of quality newspapers and magazines as part of a more 360-degree effort?
The best "digital" investments involve a client making the investment to be the only advertiser on the digital screen-- the research on this is conclusive -- and rarely discussed. And the client must pay for this and demand this exclusivity -- really investing in content integrations that make sense, AND build on not compete with or obliterate trusted branded media relationships already in place. Look at what Vanity Fair is doing today for the brand of Caitlyn Jenner. That is a traditional media investment that should include digital and which a smart marketer and media agency would get behind. It is in no way reflective of the decline of magazines that is implied here but rather with this seeking and a tremendous increase in demand for traditional media to drive sales TRANS-media and cross-platform.