If you’re bored of those plain Forrester charts, then take a look at this gem from Ruder Finn. The pro’s of the research is the interactive data visualisation that lets you view the details of any data point and compare ‘intent’ across demographics and categories. The huge con of the research is the methodology. Ruder Finn runs a census style research of a mere 500 US adults 18+, in a nation with a population of 303 million, of which 251 million are online. That means that the validity of the research is based on 0.000002% of the US online population. Which is in essence, the entire problem with surveys of this nature. Digital companies continue to throw up miniscule statistics and present them as representative of the total online space, when in reality, nothing could be father from the truth.

In an age where you can get 100s of million views on YouTube for a video of an overweight kid goofing around with a fake lightsaber, any research based on small numbers should be taken with a very large grain of salt. In the UK, YouGov runs surveys with an online sample of 250 000 plus! That in a nation with an online population of just 43 million. Even though this is still 0.0058% of the online population, you still have to admit it’s far better than what Ruder Finn has put forward.

So here are the take-outs. Learn from the data visualisation approach, but ignore the results of the data itself.

Ruder Finn Intent Index

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media usage change over time

I recently showed this image to a marketer of a traditional tea brand. The chart clearly shows the year that the Internet will wipe out television, print and analogue radio as consumer’s preferred media. That year is 2010. By 2020, all media will have converged into pure digital platforms. 

Isobar, the agency who made this chart, believe we (as in Western countries) are already at the tipping point which started in last year and is continuing now. We can see the change happening all around us. Here in Britain, Virgin Media is pushing broadband rates up to the stratosphere by installing fiber optics to the houses, otherwise known as the crucial last 10 yards that currently limits many people’s broadband speeds. Current broadband rates are at 20mB/sec in some places (though naturally real speeds vary dramatically). Basically though, it’s already fast enough to stream HD quality movies in realtime. This largely explains the phenomenal success of BBC’s iPlayer. 

As media converge online to the point where digital media accounts for over 80% of media consumed, the distinctions between different types of advertising will disappear.  Branding, direct, print, TV – will become a seamless marketing continuum. 

However, even though there will be more opportunities for online operators to put advertising messages in front of consumers as people start consuming the majority of their entertainment/ infotainment and services online, the challenge to create a measurable impact with them will be greater than any marketers have faced before. Being able to filter, ignore and even bypass ads will be easier than ever.

1998 eye tracking study by Future Lab

Already by 1998, a mere couple of years after banner ads become serious business, consumers subconsciously started to ignore online ad media. During this time, the average click rate for a banner was around the 2.3% mark. Over the years, most sites blindly stuck to their guns and kept the same formats and placements year after year, to the point where the average click rate has now dropped to 0.03%. How anyone in their right mind can claim this to be a reasonable or effective CTR is beyond me, and it should be beyond you as well. 

Simply put, if you are still using classical online ad strategies of buying banners, skys, leaderboards and whatever, you will continue to see your ROI erode to the point you might as well go back to buying those unaccountable television ads again. Your digital strategy needs to adopt with the times. Online ads are no longer a viable option. Instead, you should be looking at other options such as creating branded entertainment or branded utilities which bypass the consumer’s filtering process and engages them with value adding interactions.