Return of pre-Covid media habits to fuel data demand

Claims that Covid would force brands to rewrite the marketing rulebook have finally been blown out of the water with new figures revealing different generations of consumers are reverting to their pre-pandemic media habits.

In fact, rather than a “new normal”, Brits are actually cutting their consumption of commercial media, spending the best part of an hour less since 2015, and a quarter of an hour less than pre-lockdown 2020.

Meanwhile, there is a 29% fall in the similarity of media habits between the generations year-on-year as consumers revert to behaviour seen before the pandemic in 2020, as young people lap up digital platforms and the older generations revert back to traditional TV.

These are just some of the findings from the latest IPA report, Making Sense: The Commercial Media Landscape – now in its fifth year – which pinpoints how, where and when commercial media is being consumed and asserts the need for accurate, detailed data and diverse media plans to achieve optimal consumer engagement.

According to the data, the amount of time all adults (aged 16+) are spending with curated commercial media per day has fallen by 51 minutes since 2015, from 5 hours 35 minutes to 4 hours 44 minutes. This is down by 15 minutes since pre-Covid in 2020. This equates to a 15% decrease over seven years among all adults and a 5% decrease since pre-lockdown 2020 IPA TouchPoints data.

The majority of lost curated commercial media time over the past seven years can be attributed to changing behaviours of those aged 16-34, who now spend 1 hour 22 minutes less with curated commercial media, a 22% decrease, down from 6 hours 15-minutes to 4 hours 53 minutes, since 2015. Their curated commercial media usage has, however, remained fairly constant since the pandemic, spending two minutes more per day in 2022, an increase of 0.7%.

When looking at 35-54s, time spent with curated commercial media time increased slightly between 2015 and pre-lockdown 2020 – going from 4 hours 55-minutes to 5 hours and 1 minute – before a 14 minutes per day, 4% decrease, fall since pre-pandemic 2020 to the current figure of 4 hours 47 minutes per day. Overall, this marks an eight-minute fall since 2015, a 3% decrease.

Over 55s have seen a slightly greater fall in time spent with curated commercial media against pre-pandemic 2020, a 6% decrease of 20 minutes per day from 5 hours 2 minutes to 4 hours 42 minutes. However, when looking at the long-term trend from 2015, there is an eight-minute, 3%, increase up from 4 hours 34 minutes.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic fuelling a significant convergence of media habits, as outlined in last year’s IPA report, this latest data shows this trend is now reversing.

Last year, there was a 52% correlation in the commercial media usage behaviours of 16-34s and over 55s in terms of reach. This year, this correlation has dropped by almost a third (29%) to 37%, down from the 39% seen in 2020 pre-lockdown, revealing that the different generations of consumers are reverting to their pre-Covid media habits. In 2015, the correlation between these generations was 44%.

As a result of changing habits, in today’s commercial media world, only OOH consistently delivers over 90% weekly reach across all age groups, with only commercial live/recorded TV among the over 55s able to reach the same mark for any other media and age bracket.

While for all adults (aged 16+), the balance of commercial media time share is 51% vs 49% in favour of digital, perhaps unsurprisingly this is most extreme for 16-34s and least extreme for those aged over 55.

In fact, 16-34s spend 80% of their commercial media time on digital platforms, a 10% increase since pre-pandemic 2020. For the first time, each of the top five media properties among this age group are video sharing and social media platforms – led by Facebook and followed by YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.

Since before lockdown in 2020, four of these top five media properties remain the same, with the exception of ITV/STV being replaced by TikTok.

Among 35-54s, 52% of their commercial media time is spent on digital platforms, which is fairly unchanged from 53% in pre-lockdown 2020. The top five media properties for weekly reach in this age group are Facebook, ITV/STV, YouTube, Channel 4 and Instagram. The only change since pre-lockdown 2020 sees YouTube move ahead of Channel 4 for this age bracket.

In comparison, those aged 55+ are still spending the vast majority of their curated commercial media time with non-digital platforms and only 28% of their time with digital platforms, the same amount as in pre-lockdown 2020.

This is demonstrated by their top five media properties including four commercial TV channels – ITV/STV, Channel 4, Channel5, Facebook and Sky Entertainment. Before lockdown in 2020, the top media properties were ITV/STV, Channel 4, Facebook, Channel5 and ITV 3.

There has been a significant increase in the amount of time spent watching what the survey calls “other online video”, classed as any commercially funded online video which is not made available by a UK broadcaster, such as YouTube and Vimeo and commercial broadcaster video on demand – catch-up TV.

For all adults (16+), there has been a 16% increase in share of curated commercial media time spent watching these videos since pre-lockdown 2020, up from a 6.9% share to 8.0% this year. In 2015, this media time share stood at 1.9%.

When looking at different age groups, 16.7% of the time 16-34s spend with commercial media is with this category, up from 4.0% in 2015, and 13.5% in pre-lockdown 2020. For 35-54s, this now stands at 5.9% compared with 1.1% in 2015 and 5.7% in pre-lockdown 2020, while in over 55s this has grown from 0.3% in 2015 to 2.3% in pre-lockdown 2020 and now 2.4% in 2022.

Meanwhile, time spent watching commercial broadcaster video on demand for all adults has increased 88% since pre-lockdown 2020 – up from 1.7% of total commercial media time to 3.2%. This compares to 1.2% in 2015 when this category was in its infancy.

The 16-34s spend 2.7% of their total commercial TV catch-up, compared with 2.0% in pre-lockdown 2020 and 1.8% in 2015. For 35-54s this has grown from 1.1% in 2015, 1.9% in pre-lockdown 2020, to 3.5% today. When looking at over 55s this now stands at 3.4%, up from 0.7% in 2015 and 1.3% in pre-lockdown 2020.

While TV set viewing has remained relatively constant since 2015, the share of curated commercial media time consumed on smartphone among all adults (16+) has increased by 60% in this same time period – up from a 20% of curated commercial media time share to 32%. In pre-lockdown 2020, smartphones occupied a 29% share of curated commercial media time.

Overall, UK adults (aged 16+) now spend almost as much time on a smartphone (32%) as watching a TV set (39%) with no other device taking a higher share than 10%.

The dominance of the smartphone is fuelled by 16-34s who now spend 54% of their curated commercial media time on their phones. This has grown from 33% in 2015, and 47% in pre-lockdown 2020.

Among 35-54s this has increased 74% over seven years – from 19% in 2015 to 31% in 2020 before lockdown, and now stands at 33%. Meanwhile, over 55s have seen a 100% increase since 2015, from 6% in 2015 to 12% today. Before lockdown in 2020, this stood at 11%.

IPA head of TouchPoints marketing and data innovation Simon Frazier said: “The disruption of the past few years has seen further fragmentation of the media landscape alongside an overall decline in curated commercial media opportunities which makes it increasingly complex to effectively engage with consumers and optimise media spend accordingly. Accurate, detailed data and diverse media plans are therefore crucial.

“Looking forward, while consumers’ time with curated commercial media has decreased overall, I think things are set to change again in the coming months and years, particularly with the increasing shift of streaming players such as Netflix and Disney+ towards part ad-funded revenue models.

“Despite a lukewarm initial reception in the industry regarding audience scale and CPMs, I believe this will represent not only a substantial revenue generation stream for the likes of Netflix, but also a potential new opportunity to reach previously walled-off audiences on a scale that only the BBC could rival if it were to pivot the same way.”