The summer may barely be over but this is the time of year when many brands’ forward focus shifts to the holiday season, and marketing strategies to get in front of shoppers.
This year, they will find consumers who are more optimistic about spending but who may also be more difficult to reach.
That is a takeaway from the latest annual research conducted by The Harris Poll for digital ad exchange OpenX. The consumer survey uncovers changing consumer behavior. According to the research:
“Live TV is no longer the surest way to reach consumers with information about holiday gifts with 42 percent of holiday shoppers reporting they do not have cable/satellite TV or are considering getting rid of it in the next year.
“Two-thirds of shoppers are now watching streaming TV, averaging eight hours a week, and millennials in particular report spending 75 percent more time watching streaming television than live TV.”
In this video interview with Beet.TV, OpenX’s chief brand officer Dallas Lawrence says that is a stark finding, because it runs contrary to where many marketers actually spend their advertising money.
“Thirty percent watch absolutely zero live television,” Lawrence says. “You have to let that number sink in for a second because 95% of all television dollars, ad dollars, are currently spent on linear television, where 30% of consumers now say that they spend zero time.
“Put that against the side of millennials for example, one group that’s going to be highly out in force this holiday season. They spend 75% more time streaming than they do watching linear television. So a key takeaway for marketers this year is make sure your media mix is actually targeted to where your audience is, not where they used to be in the past.”
This video is part of a series of interviews conducted during Advertising Week New York, 2019. This series is co-production of Beet.TV and Advertising Week. The series is sponsored by Roundel, a Target company. Please see more videos from Advertising Week right here.