Just got back from OPA’s (Online Publishers Association) research presentation called “A Sense of Place – Why Environment Matters“. It was held at the New World Stages by the Theater District. The presentation was fascinating – especially when watching some of the 1-1 qualitative research interviews across America on how people perceive advertising in different environments.
My top three commentaries:
- Ads in trusted sites, favored sites, loyal sites tend to resonate positively and moreso than ads in (surprisingly) social media networks like Facebook/MySpace and broad site portals such as MSN or Yahoo!
- Month to Month, OPA measures IAI (Internet Activity Index). This index provides consumer engagement online, divided by Content, Communications, Commerce, Community and Search.
- The Content category is pretty straight forward as sites that are news/entertainment related.
- Commerce is shopping sites.
- Search is Google, Bing, etc.
- Communications are Web sites and Internet applications that are designed to facilitate or exchange email messages or information directly between individuals or groups of individuals.
- Community are websites and Internet applications that combine user-generated content and networking between individuals and groups, such as Facebook and MySpace.
As of Apr 2010, what’s interesting to note is that more than 65% of internet activity is Content and Community alone. This shows how more than half of a person’s internet time is really a mixture of viewing news, entertainment while also connecting with their social media network. Add communications to the mix and the index reports 85% of a potential users internet activity. OPA measures the index monthly and more details can be found on the OPA research page.
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As research and understanding of user behavior becomes more and more sophisticated, it pays to anticipate user trends. Media as a whole is moving into a space where it is all about hyper-customization. Coupled with millions of different content, fragmentation and ways to view what you want to see, breaking out of the clutter to send a message cost-effectively will be marketers’ daily challenge.
The roadshow is going west so if anyone’s interested, definitely take the time to sit in. It was a very intuitive and insightful meeting.
For more information, or thoughts, don’t hesitate to contact me! I can talk about this for hours…!
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hello there, thanks for the very helpful blog buddy, there’s so many options with web marketing nowadays it’s hard to know where to go for the best info, thanks again.