Web Report: Which? Online Survey Shows Non-Internet Users Don’t Know What’s Online
When online sportswear company Boo.com collapsed earlier this year, sending a shockwave of panic through previously dotcom-loving stock markets, many theories were put forward about why it happened. The website looked fantastic, its product- label-conscious sportswear- was well targeted for the young and male dominated market of net-heads, so what went wrong?
One theory was that too much cash was squandered on an ineffective TV ad campaign. The boo.com ads took the style of the weird “bad dancers” in Fatboy Slim’s Praise You video and had the characters doing sport in urban environments such as the New York subway. Very cool looking, but did it leave any viewers more aware that boo.com was a fantastic-looking site selling label-conscious sportswear?
More recently, another distinctive ad has appeared on the small screen, for breathe.com. Everyone likes the moody, bluetoned photography and the beautiful boy and girl on the beach, making the tide go in and out by breathing. Its atmospheric, its stylish- anyone know what on earth breathe.com is? Thought not.
This is the criticism levelled at dot com advertisers recently, and recent research by Which? Online has given strength to the arguments. Its Annual Internet Survey, launched this week, shows that the 51% of the population who say they will never go online think the internet is “irrelevant” to them. Can this be true? Surely, with museums, shops, governments, newspapers and even whole towns online, between pokemon.com and saga.co.uk, there must be something to please more than 49% of the population.
The more telling statistic is that 25% of non-internet users don’t know what the internet is used for. This is what the advertisers should aim to address. Chances are, in fifty years time (maybe even ten) we’ll look at the stage we’re at now with the internet in the same way as we laugh at early TV broadcasts where puppet-like presenters read the news in clipped tones and full evening dress.
Okay, so people didn’t gather around the only internet-ready PC in the street to see the first pictures of Leo Blair. And rather than saying “It won’t last”, 55% of the British population, according to the Which? Online report, believes our future lives will be dependent on one mobile device which allows you to access the internet, shop,and send messages and photos online. 64% already think the internet is part of everyday life. But maybe the old-fashioned “Soap- it makes your clothes clean” approach is needed to establish product recognition for websites before the public is ready for the abstract approach.
Paul Kitchen, head of Which? Online says, “Internet service and content providers need to establish a clear message for non-users to show how they can benefit from online activity.”
Another issue for the dotcoms is that, while the world wide web may have been founded on an anarchic form of “Let Nation speak Peace unto Nation” values, the big businesses are in it for the money. The report shows that 6 million internet users in this country (nearly 25%) are now online shoppers, compared to 10% in 1998 and 20% last year. Yet the biggest concern the public have about the internet is fraud, with 58% saying it worried them, compared to 54% who have doubts about morality online.
A further 51% said they would be concerned about using a credit card online, although this figure dropped to 30% among internet users. Not surprisingly then, 87% of those questioned said they would be reassured if websites carried independent certification that the site is safe for online shopping. 13 million people in the country use the internet. Doubtless many more would shop online if they were convinced of its safety, yet there is still no sign of e-tailers coming up with a reliable, universally recognisable system of certification.
That said, there may be some good news on the way for those despairing at the 51% of stubborn non-internet users. Paul Kitchen says, “New methods of access like interactive TV and mobile phones, which offer consumers a mode of accessing the internet without the expense of a PC may change many minds.”
In the survey, 29% of those questioned were looking forward to accessing the internet through digital TV. One in 14 internet users have used a mobile phone or digital TV already for internet access. However, it seems that once again there is a case for “education, education, education”, as only one in three internet users understood the term WAP…
Which? Online: www.which.net