Data is our favorite lunchbox

When it comes to decide the strategy of a creative campaign, target research and data are juicy starting points to give creativity the right boost.
Consumer data are especially relevant, after the not so recent alarms on information and advertising overload. In the US, for example, there are about 630,000 TV screens placed in retail stores and their number is poised to grow. The question is: are they really useful?

What’s happening is that given the impossibility to assimilate an excessive array of media options, people tend to go multitasking and this affects how they use traditional media and discriminate among different types of content.
According to the latest report by BIGresearch which conducted a survey on 15,727 American people, the top 3 promotions influencing the purchase of a product are in-store product, samples, shelf coupons and special displays.

New media options tend to increase people’s engagement with other activities, such as reading newspapers, listening to the radio or watching TV. In this respect, key interesting findings are:

• 70% of the people eat while engaging with media, followed by doing housework and laundry, cooking and talking on the phone.
• When reading a newspaper, 30% also watch TV, 17% listen to the radio or go online.
• During a TV commercial, 41.2% of the people surf on other TV channels, 33% talk over the phone or contact people online, 30% think about their own business.

It’s not about being hostile to product information or being overwhelmed by it, though. More likely, it’s about learning to discriminate useful from redundant information. Experienced consumers tend to stick to relevant facts, especially now that budgets are stretched in a slowing economy.

Photo courtesy of jsc*