The Social Video Report 2012

A new study into the consumption patterns of UK consumers of online video suggests that brands should be investing in the platform.

The research, produced on behalf of Visibility IQ by Entertainment Media Research, looked at the online viewing habits of web users aged between 15 and 64 and concludes that online video works because it “maps engagement, sharing and purchase behaviours.”

The study also details a shift in video consumption from desktop computers to mobile and tablet devices.

Key findings include:

• 78% of UK adults who use the internet watch an online video every week.
• Personal interest and hobby videos are most popular, watched by more than half of internet users every week (54%).
• People also access videos for a variety of other reasons, for example to catch up on latest news stories (48% every week), watch music videos (45%) and Movie/Book Trailers (37%).
• Within interest groups the viewing incidence rockets, for example although 32% of internet users watch videos related to gaming every week this figure increases to 48% amongst people who consider themselves to be ‘gamers’.
• The most frequent viewers of online videos are males aged between 15 and 34 with 81% watching videos on a daily basis. This is closely followed by students, 78% of which consume videos daily.

The study also found that women are avid viewers of brand-related content, with four in ten mums with children under 16 watching TV commercials online every week.

Of those surveyed that watched product demonstration videos, 96% cited purchase consideration as their primary motive and almost six in ten (57%) have gone on to purchase an item after seeing it in an online video, a figure that rises to seven in ten amongst males aged 15-34.

Consumers that have made a purchase are likely to have done this on more than one occasion – seven in ten (71%) have purchased items on two or more occasions over the last year after seeing videos promoting or demonstrating products/services. Over the last 12 months 40% of males aged 20-34 have bought at least 5 items after watching product videos.

Unsurprisingly, the main video discovery platforms are YouTube (67% of internet users use the site every week), Facebook (56%) and Google (52%).

Since 2009 usage of home PCs and laptops to watch online videos every week has fallen from 72% to 66% of owners while usage of the Smartphone has doubled from 31% to 66% of owners.

60% of SmartTV (increasing from 15%) and 66% of tablet owners now use these devices to watch online videos weekly.