Research

The magic number is $25, says Parago in a new research study that asked consumers what their time is worth when providing feedback on products or services, listening to sales pitches and providing personal information to companies and marketers via various methods of interaction. For $25, a significant majority would demo a product or service if approached in a public setting (96%), take a 10-minute survey via smartphone (91%), get a quote online (78%) or in-home (74%) for something like insurance or cable (78%), and participate in a 1-hour in-store sales presentation (77%). Read more »

A comprehensive study of multiculturalism in America by Geoscape determines that Asian and Hispanic households will outspend non-Hispanic White households in their lifetimes. The study (executive summary download page here) pegs consumer spending for the remaining lifetime of an average Asian household at roughly $2.4 million, compared to slightly less than $2 million for Hispanics, about $1.6 million for Whites, and $1.3 million for Blacks. Read more »

82% of marketers agree that with the current economic conditions, they're challenged with identifying cost savings and reductions in their marketing and advertising efforts, per results from an Association of National Advertisers (ANA) survey. That's down slightly from 84% last year and a high of 93% at the beginning of 2009, but remains above 2011's 77%. The ANA conclues that "there will always be pressures on budgets, even in the best of times." Read more »

Interactive pre-rolls represented 36% of video ad impressions in 2012, according to AdoTube's "2012 Global Format Index," up from 30% in 2011 and just 19% in 2010. Along with their rising popularity, these ads also drove the highest click-through rates across all of the global markets tracked, and saw their overall engagement rate jump from 2.6% in 2011 to 3.8% in 2012. That compares with an engagement rate of 0.9% for interactive overlays. Read more »

The types of content that people share may be driven more by ego than anything else, finds 33Across in a newly released study. Examining 450 of its largest publishers across 24 content categories, 33Across found that topics with high share rates often have low clickback (link clicks/shares) rates, meaning that a significant proportion of readers share these links, but few people read them. The researchers found that these content types generally were "esoteric," suggesting that the intent of sharing revolves more around "personal branding" (ego?) than practicality. Read more »

Almost 8 in 10 digital media professionals are at least satisfied with their jobs, according to survey results from Digiday and Nextmark, and that includes about half who "enjoy" their work and 8% who "love" it. The survey also finds that more than one-third have become happier in their jobs in the past year, but that more than 6 in 10 plan to leave their jobs within the next year or two. Read more »

An increase in Twitter volume about live TV correlates with an increase in TV ratings across varying age groups, finds Nielsen in a study conducted with SocialGuide. Analyzing tweets about live TV, the study determined that Twitter was one of 3 statistically significant variables to align with TV ratings. The other two are prior-year rating and advertising spend. Nielsen cautions that the "study doesn't prove causality." Read more »

DG MediaMind has released its latest report benchmarking performance metrics for several online ad types and formats across dozens of countries and verticals. The study finds that in the US, the average click-through rate (CTR) for in-stream video ads was 1.11% in 2012, up from 1.03% in the previous study (covering Q2 2011 - Q1 2012). That topped the benchmark rates for mobile banners (0.88%, inching up from 0.87%), rich media (down slightly from 0.15% to 0.14%), and standard banners (unchanged at 0.1%). Read more »

Nielsen's decision to expand its ratings system was broadly dissected (including here) and now Nielsen has done everyone a favor and profiled the small portion (less than 5%) of US households that did not fit its traditional definition of a TV household, but will start being included in measured samples for the 2013-2014 season. Noting that the number of "zero-TV" households has more than doubled from 2007 to exceed 5 million, Nielsen reveals [download page] that three-quarters of the homes have at least 1 TV set, but two-thirds get their content on other devices. Read more »

The average email open rate rose to 27.4% in Q4, a slight increase from 27.2% in Q3, and a significant 10.5% gain from Q4 2011's 24.8%, according to [download page] a new report from Epsilon. But click rates continued to lag, unchanged from Q3's 4.5%, but down 13.5 from Q4 2011's 5.2%. A recent report from Experian CheetahMail also found open and click rates to be moving in opposite directions. Read more »