Search & Social Media Survey Report

Greenlight, a digital marketing agency based in London, has created some buzz with its Search & Social Media Survey 2011/2012.  You can read the report from the survey at the link below.

From the Foreword:

Our annual Search & Social Media Survey 2011/2012, is based on questions we posed to 500 people from all over the world – students, law enforcement professionals, medical staff, accountants, lawyers, the unemployed, and everyone in between. We wanted to hear directly from them about how they engage with online advertising, search engines, and social networks, in the hope that we could gain some insight into how people engage with us as marketers today, and also help us formulate some views on what the future might hold.

For instance, our research found that, of 500 respondents, 5% would ‘definitely’ use a future Facebook search engine if the firm were to launch one to rival Google’s . The other extreme, those categorically saying that they simply would not use a future Facebook search engine, totalled 26% of all respondents. Those responding in the ‘definitely’ and ‘probably’ camps totalled 17%. Those responding ‘no’ and ‘probably not’, totalled 48%.

These stats therefore suggest that Facebook could capture around 22% of the global search market by simply launching its own search engine tomorrow morning (the ‘definitely’, ‘probably’, and half of the ‘don’t know’ respondents combined). It wouldn’t need to be a spectacular engine either, just well integrated into the Facebook experience and generally competent. This 22% market share would make Facebook the second most utilised search engine in every major market except for China, Japan, and Russia, where it would occupy an uncontested third place.

 Direct link to document (PDF; 2.5 MB)

The End of Advertising As We Know It

The End of Advertising As We Know It, a report from IBM's Institute for Business Value examines the present and future state of advertising. To do so IBM surveyed over 2,400 consumers and 80 advertising executives from around the world. "The IBM report shows increasingly empowered consumers, more self-reliant advertisers and ever-evolving technologies are redefining how advertising is sold, created, consumed and tracked. Traditional advertising players risk major revenue declines as budgets shift rapidly to new, interactive formats, which are expected to grow at nearly five times that of traditional advertising. To survive in this new reality, broadcasters must change their mass audience mind-set to cater to niche consumer segments, and distributors need to deliver targeted, interactive advertising for a range of multimedia devices. Advertising agencies must experiment creatively, become brokers of consumer insights, and guide allocation of advertising dollars amid exploding choices. All players must adapt to a world where advertising inventory is increasingly bought and sold in open exchanges vs. traditional channels.…The report observes four change drivers tipping the advertising industry balance of power: control of attention, creativity, measurement, and advertising inventories. As shown in IBM’s global digital media and entertainment consumer survey released in August, consumers’ attention has shifted, with personal Internet time rivaling TV time. Consumers have tired of interruption advertising, and are increasingly in control of how they interact, filter, distribute, and consume their content, and associated advertising messages. IBM’s survey findings demonstrated that half of DVR owners watch 50 percent or more of programming on re-play, and that traditional video advertising doesn’t translate online: 40 percent of respondents found ads during an online video segment more annoying than any other format. Amateurs and semi-professionals are increasingly creating low cost advertising content that threatens to bypass creative agencies, while publishers and broadcasters are broadening their own creative roles. Advertisers are demanding accountability and more specific individual consumer measurements across advertising platforms. Self-service advertising exchanges are attracting revenues that were once exclusively sold through proprietary channels or transactions." --from the press release
Executive Summary Full Report