Stats for Online Video Consumption By Gender and Age 2007
Talking about online video demographics in the US, the leading group is still 18-24 male, while 18-24 female coming second. To put the data in less neat and statistical terms, approx. 80% of young American guys [out of the corresponding internet users] watch online video at least once a week or more, and so does about 60% of US young women - all between the magic age of 18 and 24. At least, that’s what the recent Burst Media surveys show.
If we add the findings of the Men Online research published by eMarketer, we can also learn that men aged 18-24 comprise about a tenth (11%) of the total internet population in the USA. “They continue to watch fewer hours of TV and spend more time online, playing games, downloading videos, music and podcasts and sometimes shopping.” But let’s not forget that the Men Online research shows results for 2006 (for about $700).
Taking into consideration the simple fact that most online video searches are adult search term related, it is no surprise that boys are in the lead - having more inclination for physical exploration via video social networking sites and search engines. But sports searches are also really popular and the reaction to online sports videos shows high interaction with the video content. On a daily rather than weekly basis, the difference between genders is even more conspicuous: roughly 34% of young men and 18% of young women are glued to video sites on the internet (minimum once a day or more times). Another difference is that girls seem to be more sensitive to advertising.
As eMarketer reports the findings of Burst Media:
The good news for advertisers is that more than half of online video viewers recalled seeing in-stream advertisements in content they had watched [I assume not the actual advertisers but the fact that something disturbing appeared]. But more than three-quarters of respondents said in-stream advertisements in online video were intrusive, and about one-half said advertisements in video content disrupted their Web surfing experience. Women were more likely than men to say advertisements in video content disrupted their surfing. One-half of respondents stopped watching an online video once they encountered an in-stream advertisement.
I mean, yes! Alternative video ads must come along very soon, like interactive videos or hypervideos, if marketers want to converse with clients - in a transparent way. I think at this point interactive videos are the coolest ever. Mid-way advertising solutions, like the bottom right corner banners on Joost, or the traditional newsreel type text banners at the bottom on Revver or YouTube are acceptable. But buying multiple pixel-clusters on the very same page (for simultaneous ad presentation) is absolutely a must for short term aggressive campaigns - long term is a lot more complicated though.
In the long term, unlike Super Bowl 2008, I would NOT give up on user generated videos just because everyone is doing this. It’s like saying, ‘let’s give up on blogs, ’cause everyone is hatching blogposts every minute.’ Can you imagine how many hours these kids and adults have spent making your ads? Can you imagine how many other people, friends have they involved through these mini projects and got to your chosen product in a meaningful and fun way? This is totally dumb to decide against using UGC ad hypes, and show thumb down to another version of word of mouth video marketing.