TGI: Online activities (downloading content)
Certain groups of internet downloaders make a particularly attractive target for advertisers, reveals the latest data from TGI.
Latest TGI data show that 77% of British people aged 15+ use the internet, up from 75% last year. The most popular online activities are email, general research, and banking or personal finance. The data also shows that three-quarters of internet users send and receive email, half use the internet for general research and 30% use it to bank or otherwise look after their finances. The fourth most popular online activity is social networking (eg Facebook, MySpace, Bebo) with a penetration of 28% of internet users – just under 11 million people.
Overall, a fifth of adults download paid-for films/music or podcasts, representing an especially valuable group to advertisers. Music remains the most popular part of the mix, with 18% of the population (6.6 million people) downloading paid-for music files. Seven per cent download podcasts and 4% download paid-for films. A quarter upload and share photos, and around 30% download material to their mobile. Ringtones remain the most popular type of download, used by 13% of adults, followed by games and pictures (10% respectively).
Men are more likely than women to download paid-for music, paid-for films, or podcasts on a regular basis, but women are more likely to upload and share photos. Men make up three-quarters of those who regularly download podcasts, 64% of those who download paid-for films and 60% of those who download paid-for music. Downloading is heavily skewed toward the younger age groups, but the skew is most pronounced amongst those who regularly download paid-for films, of whom 44% are aged 15-24. Podcasts tend to appeal to a slightly older age range.
From an advertiser’s point of view, digital content downloaders are an attractive audience, with music downloaders, for example, twice as likely as the average internet user to buy new products before most of their friends, twice as likely to wear designer clothes, and 70% more likely to buy from companies that sponsor TV programmes.
These digital music fans also tend to be highly sociable and better able to transmit word-of-mouth messages. Among internet-users aged 25-34, for example, those who regularly download music are twice as likely to talk to many different people about toiletries (in the past year), 70% more likely to talk about financial services, and 60% more likely to talk about alcoholic drinks.
Those who regularly download podcasts have a similar attitudinal profile, though they tend to be more ambitious and career-minded. They are twice as likely as the average internet user to agree they like to have control over people and resources, and twice as likely to agree they like to drive fast. They are also more likely to have talked to many different people about TV/video/audio equipment and mobile phones, and they tend to be confident of their ability to persuade others about these sectors.