Unsurprisingly, the report also concludes that YouTube is a perfect playground for marketers who are looking to engage teenagers and young adults. These users are extremely loyal to YouTube, and, according to this report, the majority of this demographic believes that it is a good thing that brands use YouTube. They also believe that brands who have a presence on YouTube are 'forward thinking and innovative.'

At the same time, though, users don't want to see any additional ads on the service, and over 50% of all the interviewed users said that they preferred the site when it was less commercialized.

However, it is also important to point out that a large number of users reported that they bought a product (both online and offline) after seeing it advertised on YouTube. Within the last year, 91% of all YouTube users interviewed for Entertainment Media Research's report said that they bought a product they saw advertised on YouTube within the last year.

Channels?

Teenagers are the most likely to subscribe to a YouTube Channel (15%), however, 58% of users have absolutely no idea what YouTube channels are about, and only 5% of all YouTube users have subscribed to a branded channel.

This, of course, is a problem for brands that start their own channels with the hope of creating lasting connections to consumers through channel subscriptions.

More Interesting Data:

This report's 300 pages are so packed with data, that we could probably write quite a few more posts about it, but here are a few facts that stood out:

• YouTube users, especially those under 19, are extremely loyal to YouTube; for 69% of all males 15-19 and 66% of all females in this age group, YouTube is the only streaming video site they ever visit
• 56% of all YouTube users have registered an account with the service (48% say they did so to watch 18+ videos)
• 29% of all YouTube users have uploaded videos to the site within the last three months
• 28% of all male users between 20 and 24 go to YouTube to watch commercials, and 43% of all 15 to 19 year old male users watch clips from video games
• the majority of YouTube users classifies itself as 'majority adopters' (44%); 33% consider themselves as first or early adopters, 17% as late adopters, and 6% say they 'never adopt'
• Sex sells: 34% of respondents complained that there are too many sexist videos on YouTube - at the same time, another 34% reported that they were disappointed when a video with a sexy woman or man in the thumbnail didn't actually contain any explicit sex

YouTube At Work

As we reported yesterday, some researchers have argued that using social media in the workplace can increase productivity. According to this report, only 3% of all YouTube users regularly use the site for work purposes (9% do so occasionally, and 13% rarely) with 59% who never use YouTube for work.

Those who do use YouTube for work, do so in order to learn more about a subject that's important for their business (48%), or to learn more about specific products (40%). Only about 16% of these users go to YouTube to find a supplier.

The majority of YouTube users clearly just go to the site to be entertained and watch Jonas Brothers clips, but even though only a relatively small group of users go to the site for educational purposes or to improve their business skills, this is still a very sizable market.

Comments

Comment threads on YouTube don't exactly have a reputation for encouraging deep, nuanced discourse, but the Entertainment Media Research report also investigated why users decide to comment on a story. Of all respondents, 73% report that they posted a comment because they liked a video, 52% because they wanted to show support for the user who uploaded the video, and 51% because they wanted to respond to another user's comments. Interestingly, only 32% said that they left comments because they really disliked a video.

Surprisingly, no user cited an innate urge to write "ROFL" or "lololololol. this is soooooo stupid" as a reason for leaving a comment.

Note: you can find more information about the methodology used by Media Entertainment Research, as well as information about how to get a free chapter from the report (and how to buy the full report), here.]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/report_users_expect_brands_to_be_on_youtube_no_more_ads.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/report_users_expect_brands_to_be_on_youtube_no_more_ads.php Video Services Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:37:34 -0800 Frederic Lardinois Even though online video is clearly making its mark in the media landscape, TV is still the predominant means of media consumption for the average American. Indeed, according to a new study sponsored by Nielsen, even among young adults 18-24, Internet video only represents less than 1% of their total media consumption. In total, the average American adult spends about 8 1/2 hours a day in front of a TV, computer, or mobile phone screen. On average, these adults also watched about 72 minutes of TV ads per day.

Unsurprisingly, this study, which tracked the media consumption habits of 350 Americans, also found that older adults tend to spend more time in front of their TVs, while they also spend significantly less time in front of their computers. Interestingly, among all age groups, the overall time spent in front of screens is very consistent (about 8 1/2 hours), but boomers 45-54 consume about one hour more than all the other age groups.

With regards to computer usage, surfing the web, emailing, and using 'any software' are the predominant activities. On an average day, young adults 18-24 watch about 5 minutes of online video. As expected, this group also uses email far less than any other group (20 minutes), except for users over 65 (11 minutes). According to this study, younger adults also have a stronger tendency to use all different kinds of media simultaneously (think surfing the web on the couch while watching TV).

Online Video is Still Very Small Compared to TV

Surfing the mobile web (0.9 minutes per day), and watching mobile video (0.1 minutes per day) is clearly only a hobby for a small minority of users. We do know, however, that those users who do watch online and mobile video tend to watch a lot of it, so clearly, this market has a lot of room to grow, even though TV will surely hold on to its dominant position as the preferred means of consuming video content for quite a while.

A Few More Interesting Results

• users who owned a DVR early on used it to watch TV far more often than those who only got a DVR recently.
• HDTV owners who just bought their first or second HDTV watch more TV than others
• Americans over 45 spend more time fiddling with the screens on their GPS navigation systems than they spend on watching Internet video.

Sadly, the report does not include data for users under 18. Our suspicion is that the numbers for online and mobile video viewing might be quite different for this demographic.

Overall, the results from this study also correlate well with Nielsen's own A2/M2 Three Screen Report from 2008.

Here is a copy of the press release (pdf).

CC-licensed logo image used courtesy of Flickr user Aaron Escobar.

Even more interesting is that the simultaneous media usage for men decreases the older they get, but for women it's the opposite. Up until the age of 40, it's the women who are the better multi-taskers. Amanda Welsh, head of research for IMMI, thought the trend was surprising, given the amount of sports-related programming on the web. What does this mean? She says that they're interpreting the data to mean that "women are more inclined to multi-task than men."

What About the Digital Natives?

Arguing against hard data is difficult, but we have to agree with Amanda - this information is surprising. It seems to support the age-old theory that women, because of their "natural" abilities as mothers and in running the household, have some sort of innate multi-tasking abilities that allow them to engage in different activities at the same time more often (and the subtext implies "better") than men.

But is that still accurate? We're not entirely sure. The ability to take part in different activities when surfing the web is something today's teens and young adults, aka the "millennials'" or "Generation Y," also reportedly do well. Because this generation grew up with the internet a part of their world from the day they arrived, multi-tasking while online just became a normal part of their existence - for both boys and girls. Surfing the net while instant messaging, listening to music, and/or watching TV, is something that this younger generation of internet users are known for. And since these millennials are a part of the age range (15-48) involved in this study, you would think their learned multi-tasking behavior would have some impact on the reported results. But Instead, the results seem to uphold the more traditional view about women and their multi-tasking abilities.

Then Again, Multi-tasking Could Be a Myth

This idea of multi-tasking being a skill to boast about is left over from the days when technology like desktop PCs and email systems were being integrated into the workplace. Suddenly, HR managers were looking for "multi-taskers" able to focus on several different aspects of the job at the same time. However, in later years, it's been discovered that multi-tasking is more myth than reality, since the human brain can only really focus on one thing at a time, no matter how many activities a person is engaged in. The new advice for increased productivity is to slack off, work simpler, and ditch multi-tasking altogether.

So perhaps women sit in the living room with notebook PCs on their lap more often than men, but let's be honest - they aren't multi-tasking. They're just tuning out the TV to engage in something more interesting instead; the internet.