A recent report on advertising and the media issued by Nielsen offers up some interesting statistics about consumers that all marketers should be aware of. What follows is a survey of some notable points:
• 86% of U.S. smartphone owners say they use their devices as second screens while watching TV, and nearly 50% do it every day.
• Since 1995, the number of African-American TV households has increased by almost 40% and Hispanic TV households have nearly doubled.
• As of this year, there are 14.9 million African-American TV households, 14.7 million Hispanic TV households and 5.2 million Asian-American TV households.
• Sunday is the most-watched primetime TV night with 125 million persons with sets in use. Next is Monday night with 120 million persons, followed by Tuesday (114 million persons), Wednesday (113 million), Thursday (112 million), Saturday (108 million), and Friday (107 million).
• U.S. TV ad spending in 2013 reached $78 billion, up 3% from 2012.
• Which types of programming get the most ad dollars? Dramas get $12 billion; general news programs get $9 billion; sitcoms get $6 billion; feature films, news specials and reality/variety programming each get $5 billion; documentaries and the NFL regular season telecasts get $4 billion; and talk shows get $3 billion.
• Asian-Americans average more than 4 hours per person each month streaming video, the most of any ethnic group.
• In 2013, 2 million unique African-Americans on average streamed videos on Hulu each month and spent 10 hours 30 minutes per person viewing.
• The average TV viewer in fourth-quarter 2013 spent 155 hours and 32 minutes watching traditional TV per month. The average time watching time-shifted TV per person was 14 hours and 40 minutes. The average time watching video on the Internet per person was 7 hours and 34 minutes. And the average time spent watching video on a smartphone was 1 hour and 23 minutes.
• The average number of channels viewed by each person per month averaged 17 in 2013, the same number as 2012.
• In 2013, 14 minutes of commercials aired during each hour of network TV programming.
• 53% of commercial messages aired in 2013 were 30-second spots, 44% were 15-second spots and 2% were 60-second commercials.
• Nielsen TV Brand Effect Data shows that when viewers are paying more attention to a program, they will also pay more attention to the ads that air within that program.
• Although they represented 37% of primetime programming season-to-date, dramas account for 62% of time-shifted viewing, illustrating that viewers are actively making a date to watch drama.
• 41% of consumers use second screens to look up information about characters on a show they are watching; 29% use email or texts to communicate while watching TV; 18% read conversations in social media; and 12% participate with a show by sending in votes or comments.
• During 2013, consumers spent $771 billion in grocery stores.
• During 2013, 26 million people sent 990 million tweets about TV, according to Nielsen Social.
• The Twitter TV audience for an episode is, on average, 50 times larger than the number of people who are writing tweets.
• Commercial breaks aren’t tweet breaks. Viewers send the majority of their tweets (70%) during program time rather than during commercial time.
• Between August-October 2013, Nielsen Social found that 5.5 million people tweeted about both brands and TV. TV tweeters made up 73% of the total number of people who tweeted about brands during that time, and they sent a huge portion of tweets—89%—about brands—an important indicator for advertisers looking to see how brands can reach consumers who will comment about their products.
• Among smartphone owners, 76% use store locators to find stores, 66% use their smartphone to check prices, 59% do research on their smartphones before making a purchase, 49% use mobile coupons, 47% read recent reviews, 39% made purchases digitally, 37% used a device to pay for merchandise and 14% wrote a review of the purchase.
• In 2013, Americans spent $50 billion on frozen foods, $34 billion on soda and carbonated beverages, $28 billion on snacks and $28 billion on beer, $24 billion on bread and baked goods and $24 billion on fresh produce, $22 billion on paper goods, $20 billion on candy and $19 billion on milk. They spent $18 billion on packaged meat, $10 billion on wine and $6 billion on liquor.
