This is having a far-reaching effect on consumer behaviour in all its forms, and in turn on any business which concerns itself with understanding or talking to consumers.
Take the UK. Until recently, people spent time at home watching or listening to a handful of TV and radio channels. Now, they have hundreds of TV and radio channels, both traditional and on-demand, alongside millions of pages, forums, communities, podcasts, games and download sites on the internet and mobile phones at their fingertips. Consumers are taking control of what they watch, what they listen to and how they communicate.
The statistics show how and where. The number of high-speed broadband connections globally is growing swiftly, predicted to be a third of the world’s 1.5 billion online connections in 2008. At 3.3 billion mobile subscriptions, there is now one mobile for every two members of the world’s population, with Western Europe and Russia boasting a penetration of over 100%. Digital TV take-up continues to grow, with nearly half of TV households worldwide forecast to be digital by end of 2012. China is driving the growth, and will account for a quarter of all digital TV households by 2012. Today’s teenagers – dubbed ‘digital natives’ – are predicted to spend 80% of their waking time with digital media by the end of this decade. As a result, our job – both in Aegis Media and Synovate – is to navigate the seismic effects of these changes on how consumers consume, interpreting true trends, cutting through hype and providing genuine insight.
At the same time, the world’s businesses and brands are becoming global. For cost, technology and efficiency reasons, companies now often look to align their campaigns or research projects across a number of continents. This shift in approach is having a significant impact on marketing strategy, procurement and budgets, with growth driven increasingly by emerging markets in more established product categories. Below we set out the ways in which these major changes in consumer behaviour and the trend for globalisation will affect our marketplace this year and beyond.