• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, August 19, 2019

One of the ongoing -- albeit underlying -- themes of RTBlog has been how people use their time.

Normally, the focus is on how ad execs leverage real time to capture more of their prospective consumers’ time.

But in today’s editions of Media Daily News and Research Intelligencer, we're publishing findings of separate studies asking ad execs and consumers how they work during the dog days of summer, as well as what kind of leisure time activities they’ve participated in during the past two months.

The findings are similar to other studies we’ve conducted showing the differences between ad pros and "average" consumers when it comes to how they spend their time.

By and large, both ad execs and consumers perceive that they spend their summers working just as hard as they do the rest of the year.

However, ad execs are much more likely to say that they get "significant" time off -- but also much more likely to report that they work on vacation, and work more often from home.

One reason we conduct these studies is to show the overlaps and disconnects between the ad industry and the "average" people they're trying to reach and influence.

A second parallel study focusing on “leisure time” activities, published exclusively in today’s Research Intelligencer, indicates that ad execs play harder than average consumers, but they also work harder on projects that have nothing to do with their day jobs.

About half of advertiser and agency execs told us they've worked on a “second business” during the past two months, while only 8% of consumers indicated the same.