Adland out of touch with ‘real Australians’ and doesn’t understand their media habits
The echo chamber in the media, marketing and advertising industry is causing adland to underestimate the power of television and place a disproportionate weight on the importance of social media platforms in the lives of ‘everyday’ Australians, ThinkTV’s first AdNation study says.
ThinkTV commissioned marketing academic Professor Karen Nelson-Field to run the study which involved 1,636 adland professionals and over 1,016 “normal” people – based on the demographic profile of the industry and that of wider Australia – in a bid to reveal the key differences between the two groups, and how this leads to a disconnect between how people are engaging with advertising, and where marketers are spending their money.
The report claims the findings prove the “echo chamber” is alive and well.
On the left (orange) is how often adlanders use social media platforms, on the right (dark pink) is every day Australia. The light pink indicates how adland thought ‘normal’ people would answer
“AdNation 2017 reveals that industry professionals over-estimate what percentage of average Australians have used social media and subscription video on demand in the previous seven days, in some cases by a huge margin,” a release explaining the study said.
“This is perhaps not surprising given that AdLanders were found to have radically different lifestyles and media consumption habits to those of normal people, including a much larger online footprint than the rest of Australia, particularly when it comes to social media.”
The study revealed adland’s perception of what ‘normal’ people are doing, and how they engage with media, is in many cases incorrect.
Adland vs ‘normal’ people in their perceptions of television
Adland estimated 78% of everyday Australians would have used Netflix within the week before the survey period, but the study claims the real figure is just 28% – an overestimation by adland of 179%.
Snapchat’s importance was also overestimated – by 204% – with adland predicting 76% of people use it each week, when in fact the study found only 25% of people use it.
The most significant overestimation came from Twitter usage, with only 13% of regular Australians claiming to use the platform, a figure adland estimated would be 53% – a 308% miscalculation.
Perception vs reality: What adlanders and ‘normal’ people are doing online
Both adland and regular Australia agreed that TV “was by far the most likely place to find trusted advertising, advertising that would make them feel emotional and advertising that would stick in the memory” – but almost twice as many ‘normal’ people (42%) said they were likely to find advertising they liked on TV, compared to adland (22%).
TV, the study said, was also most effective in helping people find new products, brands and services – with 47% of Australians saying it was the platform they would see advertising for things they had not yet heard of, which was two-and-a-half times more than the next media channel, social media (chosen by 18% of people).
Adland on the other hand, nominated social media as the most likely medium for this to occur, with 44% choosing social media and only 19% selecting TV.
Portrate: “We all know that in the world of marketing, media and advertising we live in
a bit of a bubble”
Adland professionals are also 22% more likely to have used Facebook in the past seven days, 43% more likely to have used YouTube, 96% more likely to have used Snapchat, 140% more likely to have used Instagram, 161% more likely to have used Netflix, 180% more likely to have used ABC iView, 238% more likely to have used Twitter, 285% more likely to have used WhatsApp and 314% more likely to have used BuzzFeed.
On the publishing side, adlanders are three times more likely to prefer The Sydney Morning Herald, almost twice as likely to prefer The Age, almost half as likely to prefer the Herald Sun or The Daily Telegraph, as likely to prefer The Australian, and four times as likely to prefer The Australian Financial Review.
Professor Nelson-Field said the level of disconnect was astounding.
More findings from ThinkTV’s AdNation 2017 study
“Even as someone who operates in media circles, I was surprised at the level of disconnect between the media group and the reality of normal Australians,” she said. “AdNation is a very important piece of work because it really identifies where the conversation needs to change.”
Kim Portrate, chief executive of ThinkTV said adland already knows the bubble exists, and the study “allows us to have a good laugh at ourselves”.
“But it also makes a serious point. Knowing what people like, feel and do is critical to our success when out comes to growing brands. But we also know that our own preferences can lead to projection bias, which ultimately impacts the spending decisions we make about media.
The lifestyle differences between adland and ‘normal’ people
“AdNation 2017’s findings represent a big opportunity for marketers and advertisers to reassess how in touch we are with the reality of everyday Australians. We need to keep their actual media consumption habits front of mind, rather than simply using ourselves or our friends as a sample of one or a few.
“The findings also provide a fresh opportunity to reassess the power of TV to grow brands. TV advertising emerges the clear winner from AdNation 2017 as the most liked, trusted and memorable form of advertising and the one that draws the most attention to brands you’ve never heard of.”
The study also found adland is younger than the typical Australian population, less likely to have children and more likely to live in a share house.
Where Australians and adlanders find advertising they ‘like’
Professor Nelson-Field used a representative sample of the Australian population provided by Pure Profileand Mumbrella’s database to survey a representative sample of advertising, media and marketing professionals, which included representative splits of seniority. The gendere balance was 51% female and 49% male for both samples.
The study findings were presented at Mumbrella360 this evening.
Interesting and, frankly, not very surprising. I’d like to see a more detailed breakdown of the demographics from both sides if possible. Will this study be released as a paper?
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Amusing, if somewhat straw-man argument.
Human nature = we are blind to our blindness.
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Is ‘adland’ media or creative agencies, or both?…. Not heard anyone at our large media agency be engaged in this but might be wrong…
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I appreciate the point that this industry funded research is trying to make and we should of course be aware of our biases. However this also takes no account of the independent research tools, Roy Morgan etc.. , that media agencies use to plan and buy.
Clients could usefully ask agencies whether their plans account for that kind of data, not how young, old or technologically advanced they are.
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Adland folk live in a bubble? Underestimate the power of TV? Out of touch with ‘normal’ people? I’m shocked I tell you. Deeply shocked.
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TV is so expensive. Let’s just make some content for your tiny budget and everyone wins. It’s trackable!
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Kim Portrate = Boss Lady
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Was thinking the same thing. The description of ‘adland’ isn’t clear, and it depends how the ‘normal’ people were recruited too.
Interesting results nonetheless, but would be good to understand potential flaws in the study.
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“TV should get more money” says study funded by TV networks.
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Didn’t Adshel do this exact same thing a few years ago?
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Whereas the leaders of the TV industry are a perfect picture of the diverse modern Australia
https://mumbrella.com.au/many-guys-one-girl-media-owner-edition-448428
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Can’t wait to meet all the strategist, planners and buyer who do their professional jobs based on what their own habits or what they might think people do.
Funny. I was under the misapprehension that we used umm data, ratings and metrics.
Money goes where the eyeballs go. End of.
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Anyone who works in media has access to tools which tell them the usage of these platforms – I don’t know who from “Adland” they interviewed, but this is stuff most of us know. Plus, a 30 second Roy Morgan run can tell you 84% of Aussies use Facebook, not 79%, so it seems like the samples they used on both sides were unrepresentative.
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Maybe ThinkTV should talk to the Newspaper Works and put together a “future of media” roadshow. Both seem to be under the impression that everything is going great.
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I personally took this survey – it was sent to my email address as a Mumbrella subscriber asking for the “opinions of those who work in the industry” (I work in Consumer Research and Strategy but previously worked in AdLand).
I had issues with the way the survey was constructed – many questions failed to give me options. For example, “How many hours each day do you spend on…?” The number of hours had to add up to 24, but there was no “other” or “catch-all” category – so the time I spend cooking (which I love, and spend probably an hour per day, on average), cleaning, laundry, showering, doing my hair and makeup – where does all that time go? Had to move around hours in other categories just to answer the question and move on. Not representative at all.
Like others, am keen to hear more about the demographics of the respondents – AdLand does skew in a particular direction, as we all know. Comparing a young, wealthy, inner-city sample against the “average Australian” is going to have bigger implications on the data than the impact of the industry respondents worked in. I’m sure a survey of any industry concentrated in Sydney/Melbourne would show a similar “disconnect”.
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Yes the results will be uploaded to the ThinkTV website in the next day or so and please do feel free to contact ThinkTV directly to arrange a time to run through the demographic splits and any other areas of interest. Both the samples (Normal Australians and Adland) were representative samples of their respective universes with regards age, gender and for the Adland universe the sample was also representative of industry seniority with reference to the MFA.
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The Adland sample and responses were collected via a link on Mumbrella EDMs a month or so ago. Adland is made up of statistically significant subsets of Media Agencies, Creative Agencies, Media Owners, Advertisers and Other which consists Journalists, Industry Bodies, Research providers etc. Respondents self selected the appropriate classification.
The Australian sample was collected through Pure Profile and both samples were weighted and measured to ensure accurate representation by Professor Karen Nelson-Field.
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The purpose of the study is highlight the fact that agencies and advertisers should always carefully consider the actual media habits and attitudes of their target consumer base. The Normal People results have been compared with Roy Morgan actuals for verification of accuracy.
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Quick. Blame the young people for not buying TV….. there you go. All better.
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Why dumb down media agencies or strategists? If the assumption is that we don’t use proper planning data to plan out strategies well then I’m sorry ThinkTV and Karen Nielsen-Field you are the ones completely out of touch!
If this is the best argument they can mount for television the TV networks are in serious trouble….
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The Adland sample was collected via Mumbrella EDMs a month or so ago. It is a representative sample of Adland with respect to the MFA published tiers of seniority and gender. Within the AdLand sample there are significant subsets for Media Agencies, Creative Agencies, Media Owners, Advertisers and Other (comprising a mix of Journalists, Market Researchers, industry bodies etc).
The purpose of The AdNation survey was to highlight any potential gap between what Adland thinks the media habits and attitudes of Australians are and what normal Australians say they are. We have then validated what Normal Australians say in the AdNation study against the Roy Morgan actuals to verify their accuracy. The 79% – 84% variation you mention is correct according to our data but it is not significant given the sample sizes.
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If agencies are using all this data, why are they so massively off on their media use estimations? This data proves that you’re not taking any notice of your ‘proper planning data’.
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This is poorly done.
It’s pretty insulting to assume planners make decisions based on their assumptions asked in a freaking survey! And as a catch-all across age brackets. And further skewing results by asking all marketing/advertising roles.
You also didn’t share how much we over estimate time spent watching TV?
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AD, two things.
84% and 79% are feasibly both ‘correct’ estimates as most samples are constructed around a +/- 3% tolerance.
Second, Morgan is 14+. Do you reckon the under 14s could MAYBE just be a part of the difference.
Moral of the story? Don’t just do the run and take the results as gospel – think about how the data is generated and factor that in as well.
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Let me get this right: A TV related company, performs a study and claims that TV is performing better than we imagined v social media..?
For the interests of transparency, can we see the entire survey questionnaire, please and what order the multiple choice answers were featured too.
Is there any area detailing the immense costs for TV production v (in some cases) zero / minimal costs for an ad online?
TV has a purpose, for sure. However; c’mon!???!
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I’ve worked in the media for over 30 years and haven’t watched television in any of them, except on election nights. Nor do I have any interest in the peculiarly named Snapchat, Instagram, Netflix, or BuzzFeed. Do I then count as an “industry professional” or an “everyday Australian”, or are these distinctions themselves simplistic?
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