Integrated/Cross-Media/Convergence

Research from comScore has shown that the average TV show is about one-quarter ads, while new figures from comScore indicate that online video ads accounted for just 2.6% of all minutes spent watching online video last month. The frequency of ads seen by online video ad viewers did spike last month, to an average of almost 100 - but how many ads will viewers tolerate in one sitting? A couple of recent studies take a look at this question, from the perspective of online video viewers overall, and according to the smaller subset that are mobile video viewers. Read more »

Media and entertainment executives from around the world feel that digital is about to become their primary source of revenue, details Ernst & Young in a new report. Digital's share of top-line revenue is expected to grow from 47% on average this year to 57% by 2015, a more bullish forecast than given recently by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which also noted a shift to digital spending and revenues. In order to digitally transform their organizations, most respondents cite the creation of a culture of innovation as one of their top strategic priorities. Read more »

A sizable majority of retailers believe that multi-channel customers are either significantly (47%) or slightly (29%) more profitable than single-channel customers, something consumers themselves appear to agree with. But a new RSR Research study [download page] finds that despite retailers' belief in the value of an omnichannel strategy, they continue to encounter significant difficulties along the way. Asked their top 3 organizational inhibitors to taking advantage of omnichannel opportunities, a leading 54% of respondents said they don't have a single view of the customer across channels. Read more »

Measuring and evaluating campaign effectiveness is the top challenge when running multi-screen video advertising campaigns, according to [download page] recently-released results from a Mixpo survey. The survey - of more than 300 industry professionals across agencies, media companies, and ad tech entities - indicated that perceptions regarding which metric is most important vary. While completion rate (with a rating average of 2.56, where 1 is most important) shows up as the most important metric, brand uplift (2.69) is close behind in value. View rate (3.14), click-through rate (3.18) and time spent viewing (3.43) also received some first place votes. Read more »

Quickplay Media has released a survey of 18-60-year-olds who watch live TV or video-on-demand (VOD) using one or more electronic devices (such as a smart TV, smartphone, tablet). The study results [download page] suggest that roughly three-quarters of respondents in the US would be motivated to use their devices more for live TV and VOD viewing on account of reduced cost, more content, and better quality of programming. About two-thirds would also watch more if there was less advertising. Read more »

Whereas 5 years ago, marketers needed media planning and buying skills and the ability to implement overall campaign strategy (including timing and targeting) to be successful, the most important skills today are very different, according to [pdf] a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Lyris. Attributing the largest drivers of change to a digital environment that requires much more agility and speed (58% selecting as one of top 2) and a much more knowledgeable customer (40%), respondents indicated that the most necessary skill today is the ability to use data analysis to extract predictive findings from big data (40% selecting as one of top 3). Read more »

Pulling data from thousands of campaigns and almost 300 billion impressions across a mix of advertisers and publishers, comScore says that 54% of ads are not in-view, according to a presentation given by VP of Marketing and Insights, Andrew Lipsman, at the Advertising Research Foundation conference (first reported by AdAge here). That's significantly worse than figures released by comScore last year, which estimated 31% of impressions to be not in-view. The latest figures are more representative of reality, whereas the earlier ones are more of a "best-case scenario," according to Lipsman. Read more »

"TV Everywhere" (TVE) services aren't yet being used much by consumers, and that may be the result of low deployment, which has yet to reach 50% of America's multichannel TV subscribers, according to recent study results from The Diffusion Group (TDG). Despite its growing pains, TVE could find a willing customer base: new data from EPIX suggests that the more screens subscribers watch content on, the more value they attach to their pay TV service. That's important for an industry that suffers from chronically low customer satisfaction ratings. Read more »

[Editor's Note: This is the latest quarterly update to this article, this time containing Q1 2013 data and trend analysis.] There's a strong perception that with the rise of social media, mobile device usage, and other such digital trends, youth have put TV on mute. According to the most recent cross-platform report [download page] from Nielsen, traditional TV consumption continues to drop off on a year-over-year basis among 18-24-year-olds, though the rate of decline slowed somewhat in Q1. Read more »

Omnichannel marketing efforts can drive significant value in enhancing brand identity and recognition, according to [pdf] a group of 120 executive-level though leaders across advertising, marketing, media and technology industries surveyed by the Winterberry Group in partnership with the IAB. Referring to omnichannel strategies as those "which seek to promote a long-term, channel-agnostic approach to managing and optimizing" the consumer-marketer relationship, the study finds that respondents were most likely to recognize stronger brand identity/recognition as a benefit of the successful application of an omnichannel approach, giving it a score of 3.37 on a 4-point scale (where 4 refers to a frequent benefit, and 0 to a lack of benefit). Read more »