From Chart of the Day (@chartoftheday)
Mothers are spending a surprising amount of their daily time with media and they’re among the earliest adopters of new technology platforms, according to Nielsen’s (@NielsenWire) and BabyCenter’s (@BabyCenter) new study.
· The research shows an increased rate of smartphone adoption with 65% of moms navigating their busy lives on the mobile Web.
· Mothers are 38% more likely to own an Internet TV device and 28% more likely to own a tablet.
· 1 in 4 moms talk on the phone while watching TV or are online; and they like to shuffle through social media sites while watching online video.
While the figures are new, these trends have been building for years now. Previous Nielsen studies had shown that nearly 1 in 3 bloggers are moms, with women making up the majority of bloggers in 2011. Yet, just because moms are voracious digital consumers doesn’t mean they’re easy targets for brands and advertisers. According to the BabyCenter press release, “Three in four moms say that they skip all of the ads they can while watching television content — a rate that is 20% higher than the general online population.”
For brands it would appear that mobile is the way to a busy mom’s heart as usage of mobile for product/brand recommendations has almost doubled in 2011 to 33%. With moms relying on smartphones more than ever before, brands may want to think about upping their mobile targeting ad campaigns to reach moms directly at the point of purchase.
Moms are 50% more likely to watch video online compared to the general population.
Read the news release in full.
Also see our previous blogposts, “2 Out of 3 Moms Now Use Smartphones While Shopping” and “Motherhood Sends Moms to Smartphones.”
Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you plan your strategy to communicate your brand’s message in the most effective way.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.
According to NielsenWire (@NielsenWire), consumer interest in blogs keeps growing. By the end of 2011, NM Incite (@nmincite), a Nielsen/McKinsey company, tracked over 181 million blogs around the world, up from 36 million only 5 years earlier in 2006.
Overall, 6.7 million people publish blogs on blogging websites, and another 12 million write blogs using their social networks.
· Women make up the majority of bloggers, and half of bloggers are aged 18-34
· Bloggers are well-educated: 7 out of 10 bloggers have gone to college, a majority of whom are graduates
· About 1 in 3 bloggers are Moms, and 52% of bloggers are parents with kids under 18 years-old in their household
· Bloggers are active across social media: they’re twice as likely to post/comment on consumer-generated video sites like YouTube, and nearly three times more likely to post in Message Boards/Forums within the last month
Also see Michael Hyatt's (@MichaelHyatt) article, "4 Insights I gleaned from Building My Own Platform."
Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you plan your strategy to communicate your brand’s message in the most effective way.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Social Media/WOM tab.
Warc (@WarcEditors) reports that “young consumers in the US are growing more distinct from their older counterparts when it comes to using digital channels in the purchase process.” According to The Millennial Consumer: Debunking Stereotypes, a poll of 4,000 “millennials” (16-34 year olds) and 1,000 consumers from older cohorts by the Boston Consulting Group (@BCG_Consultant & @BCGPerspectives), 60% of the former group rated goods and services online, versus 46% of the latter cohort.
· 50% of BCG’s more youthful sample have used a mobile device to read reviews and research products while out shopping, measured against 21% for the older panel questioned.
· 53% of millennials look for information or engage with brands on sites like Facebook and Twitter, and 33% favor companies that are active on these sites. Both are 16 percentage points higher than for over-35 year olds.
· 60% of 16-34 year olds upload videos, images, and blogs, doubling the total logged by over-35 year olds.
· 59% of the first audience own a smartphone, easily surpassing the 33% of participants falling outside this age range.
· Just 26% of millennials watch television for more than 20 hours per week, compared to 49% of more mature interviewees.
Read the full report (pdf).
For an added perspective on this demographic, see USA TODAY's "Millennials Struggle with Financial Literacy."
Also see our previous blogpost, “Young ‘Millennials’ Losing Faith in Record Numbers.”
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you market your brand to Millennials.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.
A growing tide of young Americans is drifting away from the religions of their childhood — and most of them are ending up in no religion at all.
According to a new report from the Public Religion Research Institute (@publicreligion) and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs (@GUberkleycenter), 1 in 4 young adults choose “unaffiliated” when asked about their religion. But most within this unaffiliated group — 55% — identified with a religious group when they were younger.
· Across denominations, the net losses are uneven, with Catholics losing the highest proportion of childhood adherents — nearly 8% — followed by white mainline Protestant traditions, which lost 5%.
· Among Catholics, whites are twice as likely as Hispanics to say they’re no longer affiliated with the church.
· White evangelical and black denominations fare better, with a net loss of about 1%. Non-Christian groups post a modest 1% net increase in followers.
· The only group that has significant growth between childhood and young adulthood is the unaffiliated — a jump from 11% to 25%.
· The study also finds a morally divided generation, with 50% of respondents saying right and wrong depends on the situation and 45% believing in absolute morality.
· An overwhelming majority of white evangelical Protestants (68%) say they believe some things are always wrong, compared to 49% of black Protestants, 45% of Catholics, and 35% of the unaffiliated.
Read the full report (pdf).
Also see our blogpost, "US Consumer Habits Evolving."
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you market your brand to Millennials.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.
Two-thirds of the American public says religion coverage is too sensationalized in the news media — a view held by less than 30% of reporters, according to the results of a first-of-its-kind survey of both reporters and the audiences they serve by the Knight Program in Media and Religion at the University of Southern California (@USCedu) and the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron (@uakron).
Less than one-fifth of journalists, or 18.9%, say they’re “very knowledgeable” about religion. Most reporters in that minority say they’re mainly familiar with their own religious traditions, not the wider array of faiths and practices, the survey showed.
“News organizations are rightly worried about creating smart business plans and developing cutting-edge technology. But they’re overlooking their most basic resource: knowledgeable reporters,” said Diane Winston (@dianewinston), Knight (@knightfdn) Chair in Media and Religion at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism (@USCAnnenberg). “News consumers want more reporting on authentic religious experience and a lot less on polarizing religious politics. But reporters can’t do that if all they know about religion is what they hear in church or — ironically — what they read in the news.”
· A majority of both the public and reporters agree the news media “does a poor job of explaining religion in society,” with 57.1% and 51.8% agreeing, respectively.
· Both the public and reporters rank TV news lowest in the quality and quantity of religion coverage compared to other media with 28.1% of the public and 8% of reporters responding that broadcast news provides “good” religion coverage.
· The American public sees religion in starkly polarized terms. Nearly half, or 43.6% believes religion is a source of conflict in the world, while a narrow majority, 52.6%, sees it as a fount of good. Most reporters, 56.1%, consider religion to be a mixed bag, offering both benefits and drawbacks for society. But only 3.8% of the general public shares this more circumspect angle on religion.
· Not surprisingly, then, most reporters believe their audiences want personality-driven religion news related to specific institutions and events. But despite the aforementioned polarization, 69.7% of Americans say they’re interested in more complex coverage that looks at religious experiences and spiritual practice.
· A strong majority of the public, 62.5%, says religion coverage is important to them, but nearly one-third of the rapidly growing cohort of those with no religious affiliation say they aren’t interested in religion coverage.
· Christians from ethnic minorities constitute over a third of news consumers who say they’re generally very interested in the news and have a particular interest in religion. In contrast, white evangelical Protestants tend to care specifically about religion news, but less about the news in general.
Read the survey results in full.
Also see online journalism resources, such as Religion News Service (@ReligionNewsNow) and the Religion Newswriters Association‘s (@ReligionReport) ReligionLink, Religion Stylebook, and Reporting on Religion: A Primer on Journalism’s Best Beat.
Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you plan your strategy to communicate your brand’s message in the most effective way.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research and the Religion News tabs.
Could Disney’s expertise with customer service help bookstores stem their decline? According to this feature in The New York Times (@NYTimesAd), the Disney Institute (@DisneyInstitute) is the “low-profile consulting division of the Walt Disney Company.” Disney is undeniably an expert in customer relationship management.
For instance, the company has spent so much time studying its park customers — more than 120 million of them globally last year — that it places trash cans every 27 paces, the average distance a visitor carries a candy wrapper before discarding it.
When clients send their employees to Disney for training,...some time is spent in seminars on topics like “purpose before task.” They also get tours of the parks, where Disney managers demonstrate their tricks in action, like giving directions by pointing with two fingers instead of one (it’s more polite).
Disney-led workshops emphasize 5 principles: leadership, training, customer experience, brand loyalty, and creativity. Sessions are custom tailored.
Examples of Disney’s attention to detail with its clients:
Maryland teachers were instructed to engage children by crouching and speaking to them at eye level. Chevrolet dealers were taught to think in theater metaphors: onstage, where smiles greet potential buyers, and offstage, where sales representatives can take out-of-sight cigarette breaks.
A Florida children’s hospital was advised to welcome patients in an entertaining way, prompting it to employ a ukulele-playing greeter dressed in safari gear.
Also see our previous blogpost, “A Growing Trend: Retailers Perfuming Stores.”
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically communicate your brand and effectively reach consumers.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.
The above Infographic is by Adweek (@Adweek).
According to Tapping Into Tabletomics, a new study released by Viacom (@Viacom), tablet devices have emerged as the leading second-screen alternative to television for viewing full-length episodes. The new research examines consumer behavior and emotions around the tablet user-experience, with a focus on tablets as TV and the dual-screen experience.
Today's Tablet User:
· 62% use their tablets daily.
· Daily tablet users spend an average of 2.4 hours per day on their tablets.
· 85% of tablet use is for personal reasons versus business.
· 77% of tablet use is alone.
· 74% of tablet usage is done at home.
· Most media activities on the tablet, such as playing games and watching TV shows, peak with the 18-24 demo.
Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you prepare content for tablets.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.
Schools.com (@schoolsEDU) has created the above Infographic to show that nearly half of all Americans get some form of local news on a mobile device, and 46% of people get their news online at least 3 times a week. Online news sources officially surpassed print newspapers in ad revenue in 2010. Thanks to social media, we're getting news as it happens — sometimes even before news organizations have a chance to report it.
Also see our previous blogpost, "Infographic: Pew's State of the News Media 2012."
Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Religion News tab.
Although many Californians who own Kindles, Nooks, and other e-readers love their gadgets, they still prefer books the old-fashioned way — on paper — according to a survey by USC Dornsife (@USCDornsife) and the Los Angeles Times (@usclatpoll).
Even with sales of e-readers surging, only 10% of respondents who have one said they had abandoned traditional books. More than half said most or all of the books they read are in printed form.
The pleasure of reading endures in the digital age, even with its nearly boundless options for entertainment, according to data collected from 1,500 registered state voters. Six in 10 people said they like to read “a lot,” and more than 20% reported reading books for more than 10 hours a week....
And age is clearly no barrier to new habits. Folks over 50 are embracing some new reading technology at about the same rate as younger people. Twenty-two percent of those ages 18 to 49 own e-readers; 20% of people 50 and older have them.
Also see our previous blogposts, “The Next Time Someone Says the Internet Killed Reading Books, Show Them This Chart” and “Extensive New Study: The Rise of E-reading.”
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish and market content in either ebook or pbook formats.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.