Mobile Internet Continues To Expand, Drives Incremental Use Of All Media

Mobile Internet usage now represents more than a quarter of the total time spent with media, according to an updated forecast released this morning by Publicis’ Zenith unit.

The average person will spend an average of 122 minutes per day accessing the mobile Internet via browsers and apps this year, representing 26% of their daily time consuming media.

Zenith said the rate of mobile Internet expansion has begun to slow, but it nonetheless is driving incremental use for all forms of media.

The agency estimates time spent with mobile Internet will expand 19% this year, down from an average rate of annual expansion of 44% over the past six years.

“Some of this extra consumption time was cannibalized from traditional media, but the spread of mobile technology has given a boost to overall media consumption by allowing users to access more media, in more places, and at more times than ever before,” the report reads, concluding that the average person “spent 456 minutes consuming media in 2016, up from 411 minutes in 2010 – that’s an average increase of 2% a year.”

The agency’s forecasters predict that as mobile Internet usage matures, so too will its impact on generating incremental media usage.

“After 2.7% growth in 2016, we expect overall media consumption to be essentially static in 2017, then grow by less than 1% a year to 2019,” the report finds.
5 comments about "Mobile Internet Continues To Expand, Drives Incremental Use Of All Media".
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  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics, May 30, 2017 at 10 a.m.

    Joe, as the agency points out, most of mobile's usage gains have been add-ons to TV usage, which has seen only small losses in total tonnage so far, except for the youngest age segment. Actually, print media has probably taken a larger percentage hit for printed copy editions, making up only some of this via digital exposures. But the main point is that most branding advertisers will want to use video ( TV ) commercials in digital media and most will want these ads to appear in some sort of "long form" program content---because they feel that such contexts are more conducive to obtaining ad exposure and impact. Accordingly, the really important metric for such advertisers is not the total amount of time people devote to mobile but the amount of ad-supported long form video viweing that takes place on mobile phones---which, at this point, is a very small, albeit growing, percentage.

  2. Joe Mandese from MediaPost Inc., May 30, 2017 at 10:26 a.m.

    @ed papazian: re. "most branding advertisers will want to use video ( TV ) commercials in digital media and most will want these ads to appear in some sort of "long form" program content," if you say so. If it were me, I'd want to use the media that is most effective for my brand's marketing strategy.

  3. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics, May 30, 2017 at 10:55 a.m.

    I agree, Joe, however, the effectiveness of the ad and its ability to draw attention as well as make its point is usually the deciding factor. For a medium to be used effectively, the advertiser must marry what his campaign is trying to accomplish with the way the medium communicates and its content, which, in some cases, creates a positive mindset that the advertiser can exploit. This isn't just my opinion, it's what many advertisers have been saying and why they insist on using TV-style ads as their primary communications platforms, with the ads embedded in what they regard as engaging program content.

  4. Joe Mandese from MediaPost Inc., May 30, 2017 at 11:25 a.m.

    @ed papazian: There are many more brands in the world that don't do any TV-style ads. I think you're describing the behavior of the ones that do. If that's what they do, they should definitely optimize on it. The point of this article was that people are changing the way they consume media. Within that, it is creating more opportunities for conventional advertising and media too. I don't think these things are mutually exclusive. There are millions of brands in the world. Only a few thousand advertise on U.S. TV outlets.

  5. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, May 30, 2017 at 11:50 a.m.

    Yes, Joe, I am speaking about those thousands of brands that rely---rightly or wrongly---on TV commercials as their primary platform for ad campaigns. As for the others I really can't say, although I doubt that there are many pure branding campaigns of the P&G, Unilever, Kraft, etc. type on that list. I suspect that many of the ad dollars that are flowing to mobile are for direct response, retail, sales promotional, and other non-branding efforts----but I don't have the exact stats on this.

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