Kids’ media consumption goes up during the summer, particularly when it comes to movies and TV, say parents responding to a Harris Poll survey. The report is one of a few recent studies examining kids’ media consumption.
According to the results, a majority of parents say their kids (aged 17 or older living at home) watch more movies (52%) and TV (52%) during the summer, while almost half say the same about their kids’ use of video games (48%) and the internet (47%).
Watching TV ranks as a top-5 “most enjoyable” summer activity across age groups, though is outranked by playing outdoors and swimming.
In related studies, a study from Nielsen [download page] notes that traditional TV remains the dominant platform for media consumption among kids, though the amount of time spent viewing TV has declined among teens. Not surprisingly, children’s weekly programming is the top genre viewed on TV among kids aged 2-10, while drama is equally as popular among the 11-13 set and most popular among teens aged 14-17. Interestingly, Nielsen finds that “behaviors in media consumption appear to change around age 8” as children begin to own or have access to more devices.
The study also finds that parents have a significant role in the amount and type of media consumed on TVs and computers, an understandable finding. In its own recent survey, PwC finds [pdf] that kids and teens feel that they have a strong influence on what is watched. Interestingly, that report also finds that traditional TVs – not mobile devices – are the most commonly used devices for watching media, although streamed TV shows outrank network TV as their favored type of content.
The following is a brief list of other intriguing data points culled from recently-released research.
- Companies have started to respond to “Mobilegeddon” says Moovweb, which analyzed the sites of the top 3,500 AdWords spenders and found an 83% quarter-over-quarter increase in “mobile-friendliness” in Q2 (from 17% to 31% of sites analyzed). However, mobile experience optimization – which goes beyond Google’s test for mobile-friendliness and includes user experience and site speed – has not advanced. The 30% of sites tested that had experiences optimized for mobile devices was basically flat from 29% in the prior quarter.
- Online shoppers begin their purchase process at online marketplaces, according to an Amazon-sponsored study by Pymnts.com. Not surprisingly, the purchase journey has a different starting point depending on the goal: when searching for information, 63% start on Google; when searching for products, 45% start on Amazon. Interestingly, the top reason given for purchasing from a site was trust in the site, perhaps reflecting concerns about their data privacy.
- Keeping with the privacy theme, while a recent study (reported here by eMarketer) indicates that personalization efforts are treated with “disdain” by UK consumers, marketers find them quite fruitful. Indeed, in recently-released survey results, VB Insights reveals that more than one-quarter of marketers are seeing increases of at least 20% in key metrics such as email open rates, website visitors, return visits, and conversions owing to personalization.
Have a great weekend!
