US Media & Technology Insights – Summer 2010

Over the course of a typical year, Media & Entertainment Strategies, Inc. engages in
hundreds of hours of conversation with tweens, teens and adults about their media and technology usage. We are pleased to share some non-proprietary findings, further supported by an internal M&ES study conducted in May 2010 with consumers ranging from 14-64 years of age.

It’s a mobile, mobile world.
Mobile access to information and tools has become so integral to people’s lives that they cannot imagine a world without it.  In light of this expectation of access to whatever, whenever from anywhere, all media products from conception must support a mobile strategy/execution.

Who’s vulnerable?
As the experience of online viewing of programming continues to improve, the threat of an exodus from cable/satellite service subscriptions becomes more real, particularly for the younger audience segment. Cable and satellite providers will need to provide a more compelling value proposition to differentiate themselves and confront online competition. In addition, respondents find commercials to be far less intrusive and irritating online than on live TV: they are shorter in length and there are fewer of them.

The iPod also appears vulnerable, as it is threatened by the prevalence of music applications (most notably Pandora) delivered via mobile devices such as smartphones and laptops.  These alternatives provide consumers with music discovery in a way that listening to an iPod cannot, and resolve a common complaint that the device requires considerable time and effort to setup and organize.

Consumers do not make a conscious connection between the quantity and quality of news available online and the traditional newspaper industry. Many assume that without newspapers, they can continue to simply consume their news online, without acknowledging newspapers as one of the primary sources of traditional news-gathering.

Not so fast!
Despite the negative press surrounding the print industry and its potential demise, magazine readers, specifically, perceive intrinsic value as well as several unique benefits to the medium.  The quality of photography, collection of articles, portability and tactile qualities are all mentioned as truly inimitable attributes of magazines.  Even ads in magazines can be positively received as part of the overall experience.  In an environment when so much of one’s time is already dedicated to screen-viewing, consumers perceive magazines as an oasis from the phone/computer/television.