Posts filed under 'Research'
Synovate is a market research company which produces a Synovate PAX survey that tracks media, prosperity and influence in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan. The latest survey shows the consumption of media by affluent consumers across these key markets in the Middle East.
What is particularly interesting, and somewhat controversial, is that PAX only studies ‘elite consumers’, including opinion leaders and wealthy people. These are early product adopters and therefore show a willingness to try new brands.
In any case, the key points of interest to advertisers is that 50% of respondents agree that they have great trust in what they have seen advertised, whilst 73% believe advertisements are a good way to learn about products and services.
The actions of these consumers, while vital to the success of new products and services, cannot necessarily be indicative of the behavior of less affluent consumers later.
You can read the Synovate press release and download a summary of the results here.
And, by the way, the graphic image above is Not an official Synovate image.
Obviously 
Hopefully the people from Synovate won’t be too bothered, and will see the humor in it.
July 1st, 2006
A study conducted by the Nielsen/Norman Group found that Internet users in the US avoid viewing banner ads, reports Clickz.
It’s being referred to as Banner Blindness which means Internet users focus on the content on a page and ignore the advertisements.
“People are not looking at the typical blinding, graphical ads. They are not looking enough time to absorb a complex ad or branding message” says the Nielsen Norman Group report.
Do you still notice banners? I do.
And, from talking to some Arabic site owners, it seems Arab users are still happily clicking on banners.
So, if Americans are tired of banners after a decade of Internet use, we’ve still got a few years ahead of us before reaching that threshold.
With regard to our region, I wouldn’t take this study’s conclusions as facts.
June 28th, 2006
According to Informa’s report on “Telecoms & Media’s Middle East and North Africa TV”, the pay TV market in the region will grow by 47% over the next five years.
The region’s 5.3 million pay TV subscribers will grow to 7.7 million by 2011.
However, the study includes the big pay-TV markets of Turkey and Israel, so the figures may not be fully representative of the Arab Middle East; but they provide an indication of the situation.
There’s been an upheaval happening happening in the pay TV industry in the Middle East, mainly due to MBC Group’s strategy of offering free-to-air quality programming (on MBC2, 3 and 4) on par with that of subscription services like Showtime and Orbit.
ART figured out that exclusive sport programming was the way to grow in pay TV, and has succeeded in that field, and Al Jazeera now follows in its footsteps also with exclusive sports programming.
The Pay TV vs. Free To Air market in Middle East satellite TV is an interesting topic and if we get detailed figures and numbers, we’ll share them with you.
For now, read more about Informa’s research here.
June 22nd, 2006
Are online newspaper readers becoming the best online shoppers?
A study by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) shows that frequent readers of newspaper Web sites are more likely to make online purchases than other Internet users.
The study calls them “power users” and says that 82 percent of them who visit a newspaper Web site everyday have bought products online, compared with 55 percent who are less frequent visitors.
Although the survey was conducted in one US city, Minneapolis, it could be indicative of the relationship between online media and shopping habits across the country, and maybe anywhere else in the world.
These newspaper readers also stay online longer, are better educated and earn more money than the average Internet user.
The implications of this study are obvious for advertisers and sellers of online products.
But, the only problem seems to be the source….. a newspaper association, praising newspaper websites
Still, there’s truth in these findings, and what applies to American online newspapers probably also applies to Arabic ones.
Are you an Arabic online newspaper reader with spending power?
Read more here.
June 19th, 2006
This information isn’t new. It’s been available since March, but it came to my attention again today, and it’s worth thinking about.
According to research published by Pan Arab Research Center (PARC), the Middle East accounts for only 3% of the world’s advertising expenditure.
Depressing?
Actually, it should push us furthur towards getting bigger budgets from multinationals who do not spend enough in our region, relative to the number of consumers we’ve got.
An exception, though, does exist within our region - even if it’s not part of the ‘Middle East calculation’ mentioned above.
Israel gets much more than it’s fair share of advertising spend, which is considerably higher per capita than the biggest Arab advertising markets (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE).
Why?
Because we need to work harder.
On another note, a new study by PARC reveals that the UAE has now surpassed Saudi Arabia as the region’s biggest advertising market (with $904 million expenditure). More facts from this study soon!
Stay tuned.
June 19th, 2006
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Thanks to Video iPods and such portable digital video devices, Nielsen Media Research has announced plans to measure ‘portable’ viewing in the US.
Nielsen is calling it “Anywhere Media Measurement”, and plans to implement it through installing software on the computers of People Meter members to track online streaming views. Additionally, Nielsen will monitor a group of 400 Video iPod owners and have them report their viewing habits. Monitoring starts this summer and data should be available before the 2007/2008 broadcast season in the US.
Read more at AdWeek.
When news like this arrives in the Middle East, it makes you wonder when research companies in the region will, at least, get started on proper monitoring of Internet media habits, let alone consider the more complex task of monitoring digial video players.
We’re too far behind in digital media in general. It’s time for a quantum leap.
Are Nielsen, PARC or Ipsos going to step up to this task in our region anytime soon?
June 17th, 2006
According to research by The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), 12% of web users reject cookies.
This is a serious issue for Internet marketers who depend on ‘third-party cookies’ set by ad servers and analytics companies to track Web sites that consumers visit and the ads they view, among other data.
Because it’s a critical matter, the IAB board is considering the possibility of conducting a public awareness campaign to educate Web users about how publishers and advertisers actually use cookies.
This research follow last year’s findings of Jupiter Research that up to 39 percent of consumers delete cookies at least monthly.
Read more.
June 11th, 2006
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