The current financial crisis has consumers taking to the Internet. They’re checking brokerage and 401(k) accounts, with traffic to the Online Trading category up 30 percent for the week ending September 21 as compared to average weekly category traffic measured over the previous seven weeks. They’re also talking. OK, I’ll go out on a limb: they’re venting. A Blogpulse analysis of terms including “401k,” “bailout” and “wall street” showed increased discussion, with “bailout” included in nearly 2 percent of all blog posts on September 29th. Check out today’s media alert for full details.
Tags: 401k, bailout, wall street
This month’s Automotive Industry Overview reports on the online aftermath of the release of an all new luxury vehicle, the 2009 Genesis from Hyundai.
Months after the official release of the 2009 Hyundai Genesis, the sedan continues to create large volumes of discussion among online consumers. The Genesis also begins to compete with luxury brands such as Acura, Lexus and BMW to gain the most buzz online. Past online perceptions of Hyundai are being challenged as the brand begins to strengthen its Web presence and image. Along with the Genesis sweeping through highly viral and visible automotive boards and blogs such as Edmunds.com, Motortrend.com and Autoblog.com, the vehicle also begins to gain buzz on competitor sites. More importantly, the buzz on these forums is positive, and is taking the attention away from competitor luxury vehicles.
If you are interested in a copy of this Monthly Automotive Industry Overview, we would love to share it with you. Please contact Larry Black at 562.947.2360 or larry.black@nielsen.com for a copy. Please remember to check back here each month as we continue to update the blog with news about our latest automotive hot topics.
Tags: acura, bmw, genesis, hyundai, lexus
The “all-you-can-eat buffet” approach to Internet access, which has ruled the online world for the past decade, is slowly turning into a “pay-as-you-go” affair. Recently, major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have rolled out plans to limit how much Internet data individuals can consume in a particular billing period. Starting Oct. 1, Comcast will impose a 250GB monthly cap on Internet data, and it’s not alone. Frontier and Cox have been said to have their own bandwidth caps, while Time Warner has been testing caps ranging from 5 GB to 40 GB in Beaumont, TX. Some companies are testing “pay-per-byte” pricing schemes, in which the more data you download each month, the more you pay. The overall segment of these so-called bandwidth hogs is relatively small; Comcast’s newly submitted broadband management plan to the FCC on Sept. 19 claims that less than one percent of its customers will be affected, while Time Warner has said that about 5 percent of its users consume more than 40GB per month.
The underlying logic for caps is simple: heavy users overburden the Internet’s “tubes,” slowing the experiences of everyone else. Once marketed as “unlimited,” Internet access provisions were rewritten over the past year as consumers began sharing more P2P files, and downloading data-heavy content.
At first glance, 250 GB seems to be a large amount of data, and most consumers should have no cause for concern. But heavy users could experience an immediate effect, from higher prices to a cut-off of service if they continually consume more Internet data than they are allowed. These caps also set a precedent for the Internet’s future: how much content can be consumed? At what cost? How will advertisers target their consumers in a bandwidth-conscious, pay-as-you-go market? While many argue as to the legitimacy and generosity of various caps, it is possible that online media consumption and advertising may change forever.
- What counts as “bandwidth”? Will cable companies count all of their immediate services and those of partner sites toward monthly usage? Is VoIP usage “data”? Will each company institute its own rules for what counts and does not count against bandwidth consumption? If ISPs start including their own content but blocking that from other sources, will their actions be viewed as anti-competitive? Censorship? Will limiting Internet data stifle long-term innovation? Will one ISP’s customers change their online behavior and remain loyal to that ISP’s content/partners to avoid higher charges?
- Competitive Landscape: As more content becomes digital and downloadable, bandwidth caps could play a significant role, affecting how content is consumed. Sites like Fancast and Hulu are becoming popular platforms for consumers to view content on demand and at their own leisure. According to Nielsen Online, Hulu’s unique visitor base has grown from 909,000 in February 2008 to 2,482,000 in August 2008 (+173%). AppleTV, iTunes, Netflix’s Roku and the Xbox 360 are among the many other options for consumers to download content at varying degrees of bandwidth consumption. Comcast’s cap of 250 GB is generous, but what about Time Warner’s lower limit 5GB cap? A single HD movie downloaded on an Xbox 360 can eat up between 4GB and 5GB. The implementation of bandwidth caps has the ability to shift the overall market to one that revolves around a bandwidth shortage.
- Innovation: Websites whose business model is based on consumers streaming and downloading content will be impacted if consumers fear they will consistently be in jeopardy of exceeding their monthly caps. Video streaming and download sites such as Hulu might not enter the future marketplace if entrepreneurs think that customers are being squeezed to limit, not access content. The overall growth of gaming, picture sharing, and video sites could be stifled given lower bandwidth caps as households are comprised of several users.
- Advertising: Projections for online ad spending show positive growth given current economic concerns. eMarketer revised projections for online ad spending in 2008 to be $24.9 billion in the U.S., expecting growth to be more than any other major medium. If consumer behavior changes due to bandwidth caps, how will advertisers change their targeting methods? For example, if sites such as Comcast-owned Fancast are excluded from the overall bandwidth cap for Comcast customers, advertisers may focus more of their marketing dollars on the site given the increased level of consumer visits. But how will other advertisers and sites fare? Would Dove’s “Beauty” video have been so wildly viral if it had exceeded a bandwidth cap?
According to the Yankee Group, the broadband services market is expected to near $1 trillion by 2012. As consumption continues to grow, how will the precedent of capping bandwidth affect the overall market and consumer behavior? The question remains whether this is a viable route that will ultimately benefit consumers, or is it merely a ploy to limit competing services and to build market share within a digital world. Only time will tell, but even though bandwidth caps will not affect many in the short-term, they have the very real possibility to alter how online content is consumed and ad dollars are spent.
Tags: bandwidth cap, isp
In our recent healthcare webinar, I argued that pharmaceutical/healthcare marketers should consider using popular Web 2.0/social media tools on pharma-branded websites to help attract audiences that are not currently being reached by these sites. (Disclaimer: I fully acknowledge that not all tools will be appropriate for all brands or for all disease categories - this is not an across-the-board recommendation.)
Let’s put some numbers behind this idea:
In one month, 6% of WebMD visitors — more than a million individuals — used the site’s Symptom Checker tool. The discussion boards have fewer visitors but are much more sticky, with users spending an average of over 5 minutes on the boards over the month and viewing more than 7 pages of content.
Both of these features are extremely popular among patients and caregivers. Is there an application for something similar on pharma-branded websites? The idea of discussion boards may be a little more far-reaching, considering the regulations this industry faces. However, the symptom checker tool provides a different kind of interactivity, and might be a model for some brands to consider.
Tags: healthcare, pharma, webmd
At Nielsen Online, we see copious examples of how people are using the Internet to look for healthcare information and to inform their decisions and choices. We wanted to learn more, and in Q2 of this year we conducted an online survey with 1,022 respondents to find out what resources consumers use and trust - both online and offline - as they look for information as part of their healthcare decision-making process. I recently conducted a webinar on this topic (download the full presentation here), but wanted to share an overview of our findings on “Connecting the Dots” as well.
- Doctors and other healthcare professionals remain in the lead when it comes to a resource that consumers would use and trust for healthcare information and this is true across all of the segments we looked at.
- Online resources come in a strong second place - consumers especially trust websites with professionally written content, like the American Diabetes Association website or the content areas of WebMD or Revolution Health. We have entered an era of collaborative healthcare - patients want to play an active role in their treatment decisions - and the ubiquity and 24-hour availability of the Internet is clearly making it a resource that people want to use as part of their healthcare information-gathering and decision-making process.
- When patients and caregivers look online for healthcare information, they are most likely to go directly to sites they know. Pharma/healthcare marketers need to promote their brand and website address across all communication channels to make sure that patients know where to look for this information when they are ready for it.
- People who are frequently involved in social networking (every day or a few times a week) are more active than the average respondent in seeking healthcare information across all different media types. Not only are these frequent social networkers more likely than the average respondent to consult online resources, as we would expect, they are also more likely to turn to family/friends, and even traditional print channels such as newspapers, magazines and books. This is a group of people with intense information-gathering tendencies - they are important to pharma/healthcare marketers because they can be reached through multiple information channels and, in turn, they have the power to influence others through the amplification of their voices in the online/social media environment.
- We also identified a segment of individuals who are Ad Unaware - unable to identify the correct treatment area for some of the top-advertised brands in the world. This group is important for pharma/healthcare marketers because they are not currently being reached through traditional DTC advertising channels. Interestingly, this group seems more open to pharmaceutical companies’ websites than the average respondent. This group is also significantly more likely to participate in social networking than the average respondent. By leveraging some social media/Web 2.0 tools on their own brand websites, pharmaceutical companies may be able to bring this unaware population into the fold.
The Frequent Social Networkers and the Ad Unaware are of special interest to me - I didn’t expect to see some of the behaviors that came through in their survey results. Watch for some additional insights on these groups to be posted in this space in the coming weeks.
Tags: cgm, healthcare, pharma
