February 29, 2008
YouTube Reaches Teeny Audience
By Tom Ryan
According to a new study, people who watch at least some online video each month – from short clips on YouTube to full-length programs on NBC.com – are an extremely small crowd. The highest-consuming fifth watches more than 140 times as much as the lower half.
According to the survey from Media Contacts, an online ad buyer, and research firm comScore, the heaviest viewers (top 20 percent of viewers) averaged 841 minutes of online viewing per month, while moderate viewers (next 30 percent) averaged 77 minutes, and the lightest viewers (bottom 50 percent) watched just 6 minutes each.
“It’s a clear indicator of how early we are in online video,” Jarvis Mak, a vice president at Media Contacts, told the New York Times.
Mr. Mak said the usage differences are reminiscent of the early days of the internet, and he expects this disparity will narrow as television networks continued to put programs online.
“It took a while to decide that this would not cannibalize their broadcasts,” he said, “but now they’re putting a lot of stuff on their Web sites” and deciding how much to distribute on sites like Hulu.com that aggregate videos.
Not surprisingly, the October 2007 survey shows that heavy users are big users of YouTube and other video-sharing sites. By contrast, moderate viewers show a high propensity to view specific video content on broadcast TV sites, including WorldNow (ABC), CBS TV Local, ABC Daytime, Scripps TV, and CMT, rather than video-sharing sites.
Light online video viewers conversely are the heaviest TV consumers, with 46 percent of this group indicating they watch more than 13 hours of TV per week. By comparison, just 39 percent of moderate video viewers and 30 percent of heavy video viewers watched the same amount of TV.
Discussion question: Should the apparent findings that only a small audience is watching online videos make consumer brands and retailers rethink launching online video campaigns? If not now, when do you think online videos will be a viable marketing tool for consumer brands?
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The longer companies persist in trying to find the vehicle that reaches all consumers the longer they are going to continue losing money. Today’s consumers are a fragmented group. There is no large group doing any one thing or using any one medium. Stop trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
There are good opportunities now, so long as you can define just who you are reaching and can keep a handle on ROI. But it’s far from “critical mass,” however you want to define that. I know some early adopters who jumped on this were disappointed, but it’ll come.
I think the analogy that’s been made about the growth of the Internet is on target here. So I’d try to keep current on it, dabbling as much as seems prudent. Most senior execs at CPG companies I talk to face this debate internally all the time, and worry about how connected they are, since most of them are Boomers.
Any national or regional brand ignoring online video is making a big mistake. It’s inexpensive marketing to a targeted group: your most committed shoppers. And if it’s done well, you get new customers, too. Part of measuring a retailer’s leadership: how quickly they learn to use new tools profitably.
I am disappointed that the article never quantifies the number of people watching online after the headline quantifies this as a “Teeny” audience. The article comments on the amount of time spent watching and the relationship between heavy users and others but, as we all know, TRPs are based on the size of the audience, not the amount of time they spend watching. If YouTube, NBC.com, or any other streaming video source can attract 7 million viewers for even a 30 second video, they have the same TRP rating as the Oprah show and are worth looking at for advertising dollars or viral video commercials.
Many CPG companies are starting to realize this fact and have taken advantage of YouTube for circulating commercials made by their loyal consumers (Search Heinz on YouTube and note the number of ketchup commercials shot by users).
Two issues to consider:
1. A hot YouTube video = press coverage. Enough said.
2. What is the typical age range of the heavy user? If they’re young (how can it be otherwise?), this is a great indicator that online video will surge. Keep it going.
Online video is still in it infancy stage. Smart marketers are experimenting with using online video to learn how to best reach consumers and support/build brands. As online video gains greater use by consumers, its overall demographics will change to better reflect current population segments. This is similar to the adoption pattern of the internet. To write off online video now would be premature and ultimately foolish.
Online video is here to stay and will only get stronger. Freedom of choice and time pressure will make this a tool that every retailer will need to learn to use.
Interesting that this discussion came along with the one about Video stores.
It takes time to build any media from early adopters to even a quasi-mass market. My guess is the issue here is generational. I think it’s a little too early to walk away from online video as a tool no matter what the current viewership numbers look like.
It’s not teeny if it’s your entire market–meaning you’ve dissected your customers and leveraged the power of the internet. And it doesn’t have to be, nor will it be for long, generational. YouTube and internet/video TV will change the way America views entertainment.
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The longer companies persist in trying to find the vehicle that reaches all consumers the longer they are going to continue losing money. Today’s consumers are a fragmented group. There is no large group doing any one thing or using any one medium. Stop trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
There are good opportunities now, so long as you can define just who you are reaching and can keep a handle on ROI. But it’s far from “critical mass,” however you want to define that. I know some early adopters who jumped on this were disappointed, but it’ll come.
I think the analogy that’s been made about the growth of the Internet is on target here. So I’d try to keep current on it, dabbling as much as seems prudent. Most senior execs at CPG companies I talk to face this debate internally all the time, and worry about how connected they are, since most of them are Boomers.
Any national or regional brand ignoring online video is making a big mistake. It’s inexpensive marketing to a targeted group: your most committed shoppers. And if it’s done well, you get new customers, too. Part of measuring a retailer’s leadership: how quickly they learn to use new tools profitably.
I am disappointed that the article never quantifies the number of people watching online after the headline quantifies this as a “Teeny” audience. The article comments on the amount of time spent watching and the relationship between heavy users and others but, as we all know, TRPs are based on the size of the audience, not the amount of time they spend watching. If YouTube, NBC.com, or any other streaming video source can attract 7 million viewers for even a 30 second video, they have the same TRP rating as the Oprah show and are worth looking at for advertising dollars or viral video commercials.
Many CPG companies are starting to realize this fact and have taken advantage of YouTube for circulating commercials made by their loyal consumers (Search Heinz on YouTube and note the number of ketchup commercials shot by users).
Two issues to consider:
1. A hot YouTube video = press coverage. Enough said.
2. What is the typical age range of the heavy user? If they’re young (how can it be otherwise?), this is a great indicator that online video will surge. Keep it going.
Online video is still in it infancy stage. Smart marketers are experimenting with using online video to learn how to best reach consumers and support/build brands. As online video gains greater use by consumers, its overall demographics will change to better reflect current population segments. This is similar to the adoption pattern of the internet. To write off online video now would be premature and ultimately foolish.
Online video is here to stay and will only get stronger. Freedom of choice and time pressure will make this a tool that every retailer will need to learn to use.
Interesting that this discussion came along with the one about Video stores.
It takes time to build any media from early adopters to even a quasi-mass market. My guess is the issue here is generational. I think it’s a little too early to walk away from online video as a tool no matter what the current viewership numbers look like.
It’s not teeny if it’s your entire market–meaning you’ve dissected your customers and leveraged the power of the internet. And it doesn’t have to be, nor will it be for long, generational. YouTube and internet/video TV will change the way America views entertainment.