Online users' content, commerce habits change throughout the day
By Rusty Coats
Director of New Media
MORI Research
Article posted January 2003
It's clear that daytime is emerging as primetime online, with news
sites leading the pack. News trails only e-mail as the most
powerful content for reaching online users during the day,
according to [15]MORI Research's [16]2002 Online Consumer Study
conducted on behalf of the NAA.
Advertisers who want to reach online users during the day need to
buy ads on news sites to reach the biggest audience. And because TV
is incapable of reaching at-work users, the Web is emerging as
daytime's most effective advertising medium.
Web site traffic to news sites begins to slip in the late
afternoon
and plummets at night.
Despite the fact that most at-work Internet users also are at-home
users, according to a 2001 Media Consumption Study by the
[17]Online Publishers Association, at-home users do not flock to
news sites. Web site traffic to news sites begins to slip in the
late afternoon and plummets at night, leaving newspaper sites
largely de-populated.
This is particularly troublesome when looking at data from more
than 50,000 online users MORI has studied in 2002. In telephone and
online-intercept surveys, online users consistently report that
their most active Internet use occurs after 5 p.m. exactly when
online news traffic logs show the least amount of activity.
Could it be that online audiences have different appetites at
different times of day? Does interest in news decline during the
course of the day? Do some topics become more interesting in the
evening? With online connectivity rapidly approaching a state of
plateau 67 percent of all U.S. adults are online growth in
frequency and in new dayparts will play the biggest role in future
online growth in general and especially for online news sites. A
Shift in Priorities
Building on findings from the 2002 Online Consumer, MORI Research
fielded an online daypart study in October and November of more
than 12,000 online users from nine newspaper sites in eight
distinct geographic zones. The study probed whether content and
advertising interests are influenced by time of day.
The priorities of our users are not constant across a 24-hour
period.
The results are astonishing. Without a doubt, the priorities of our
users are not constant across a 24-hour period. Their priorities -
what they want to do online, how often they do it and, at its core,
why they use us - change based on the time of day. The findings
reveal provocative new directions for the online-newspaper
industry.
* By morning, our users are almost as interested in news
breaking,
local, national, business and sports as they are in e-mail.
* By afternoon, with the importance of news waning,
entertainment-category features such as movie times, maps and
directions, and offbeat news are on the rise.
* In the evening, our ability to connect users with jobs, cars
and
homes becomes central, along with our ability to facilitate
their online-shopping needs from researching products to
actually purchasing products.
This research provides insights that could be our first steps
toward becoming as powerful a medium for nighttime, at-home users
as we currently are for daytime, at-work users. Many participating
companies already have begun to redesign their Web sites based on
these findings.
While we believe further testing is needed, the toplines below
provide a primer on the 2002 Online Dayparts Study. Further results
will be presented at the [18]CONNECTIONS conference in Orlando and
published for NAA members to review. Content
* Content interest shifts across different dayparts among online
newspaper users. Simply put, different content appeals at
different times of day.
*
Weather is most powerful in the morning and midday as is business
news and business-related research.
News remains the most frequently used content, with breaking
news first, local news second and national news third. Morning
and early-afternoon interests are dominated by news interest
and use. But news-category use plummets in the afternoon and
evening; by night, news is roughly half its morning strength.
* Entertainment content enjoys a surge in interest in the late
afternoon. Local calendars, movie times, online games and
offbeat news surge in the 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. daypart. Interest in
entertainment-related content particularly swells among young
users in the afternoon and diminishes only slightly at night.
* Use of sports content is solid across all dayparts. Though
interest in sports content is a niche, it is a large niche and
its sports readers are consistently interested in the topic
across all dayparts.
* Weather is most powerful in the morning and midday as is
business
news and business-related research. Weather falls off somewhat,
but interest in business-related content falls dramatically in
the late afternoon and vanishes by nightfall.
* Interactive features such as chatting on message boards,
downloading music and playing online games are powerful at
night and are even more powerful with younger users under age
24.
* Research for a personal interest or hobby remains constant and,
because other categories have fallen in resonance, becomes a
dominant player in the evening hours. This area of interest is
broad and niche-centric, but several topics show large-scale
promise: Travel, shopping and entertainment.
Advertising
*
By day, newspaper Web sites own the local marketplace.
The Internet in general and newspaper Web sites in particular
are the strongest media vehicles to reach people by day about
five times more effective in the 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. timeslot
than TV. Only radio competes as a medium used during the
daytime, but is half as strong as the Internet and
significantly weaker than online newspaper sites. Simply: By
day, newspaper Web sites own the local marketplace.
* Printed newspapers are strongest in the pre-8 a.m. timeslot,
but
not as strong as radio, the leader in that slot.
* At night, the Internet is the only medium to rival TV in the
primetime slot, where television is at its peak. Eight in 10
users watch TV during that slot; five in 10 use the Internet,
two in 10 listen to the radio and one in 10 read the newspaper.
* Online newspaper users say printed newspapers are their primary
source of local advertising, with TV and radio jockeying for
second place. But 25 percent say the online newspaper is their
primary source, and in some markets outpaced TV and radio. This
supports claims that, when combined, the newspaper and Web site
are unbeatable as a combination advertising buy.
* Newspapers and TV lead as the media that most influence users'
purchasing decisions. But the Internet is a close second, with
radio trailing. In many markets, the Internet was just as
effective as TV and newspapers in influencing purchases.
* Again, this argues for the strength of a combined-media buy,
which
would outpace all other media in reach and effectiveness.
Regarding dayparts, it also argues for charging primetime
advertising rates on Internet news sites during morning and
early-afternoon dayparts when TV is weakest and radio, while
reaching people, is not seen as an effective advertising
medium, since it does not influence purchases.
*
Online newspaper users say printed newspapers are their primary
source of local advertising.
The most powerful vehicles for night audiences are not
content-related but commerce-related. When asked what time of
day users shop online for a variety of items, from airline
tickets to vehicles, the 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. timeslot was by far
the strongest choice in every category airline tickets, books,
clothing, electronic and computer equipment, vehicles and
entertainment-related goods and services. Simply: Nighttime is
primetime for online shopping.
* Shopping for business purchases is the exception. The top
daypart
for business-related shopping is 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. which
positions online newspapers nicely as an advertising vehicle
for the business decision maker. (MORI confirmed this in a
previous study for [19]washingtonpost.com, which found that
business decision-makers turn to the Web more than any other
medium for advertising to help them make business-related
purchases. Details at:
[20]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-adv/mediakit/mediacenter/p
r/2 002/release_BDM_Study.html)
* Further, classified-ad categories are reported strongest in the
evening hours. The most popular time users say they go online
to look for information about homes for sale, vehicles for
sale, participate in online auctions or shop for
personal-related goods and services is 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. The
only commerce category to win in the daytime hours was shopping
for business-related purchases. It should be emphasized that
this survey polled users of online newspapers and by design
could not reach users who do not visit our sites. By
interviewing a national telephone sample of online users for
the NAA in the 2002 Online Consumer Study, we found that half
of all online users had never gone online for local news and
four in 10 had never gone online for national news.
That alone is a clue for expanding online franchises into non-news
categories particularly at night. If news as a category doesn't
inspire them, marketing ourselves solely as "news Web sites" will
not attract them, either. But it may be that the answer to growing
nighttime audience is the franchise online newspapers were built to
protect:
Our ability to connect buyers and sellers.
CAPTION: Digital Links
MORI Research [21]http://www.moriresearch.com
Online Publishers Association [22]http://www.online-publishers.org
Just an email away......
Justin
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