Thursday, April 6th, 2017

Millennials are great TV consumers

Jonathan Blum

In general, when we talk about Millennials, we always refer to the way how they deal with social networks or their power of influence to buy useful items related to the day-to-day life. However, very little is known about the time they spend watching TV. In fact, some would dare to affirm that millennials do not use a TV.

Recently, a media consumption analysis firm: Nielsen made an investigation on the interaction of millennials with the TV. From their main findings, they noted, for example, that young people spend 27% less of their time watching TV compared to older audiences.

Millennials are a distracted audience

During the investigation, the millennials’ level of attention and their multitasking ability were analyzed, comparing them with other generations. For example, between August and November (Fall and Premier season), the younger generations are connected to the same TV channel, as long as they are broadcasting premier series or prime time programs. The contrary is true for the rest of the year: less millennials prefer to stay connected to the same channel, generating less recall of TV commercials, although less than 2% between 18-34 years of age, change channels during commercials.

This phenomenon occurs because when they begin to broadcast the TV commercial, millennials are get distracted by watching their cell, either updating their social networks or reviewing other mobile platforms. Consequently, if millennials see they have the opportunity to avoid commercials, they will prefer to do so. Today, platforms like VOD (Video on Demand) allow users to choose what they want to see at any time, thus drawing more attention from the new generations.

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Video today is still attractive to millennials. However, technology breakthroughs have created better ways to consume on-screen, such as DVD players and BluRay, game consoles and digital streaming devices. The percentage of these new tools exceeds four times the total percentage of the traditional TV consumption level in adults over 35 years of age.

With this analysis we could conclude that the study carried out by Nielsen reflects that, in reality, millennials do not ignore commercials; in fact, 79% understand the advertising need for brands to promote their products. However, 75% of them prefer to see it, if the service they access is free. This is how new generations are changing the way we consume advertising; forcing advertisers to devise new ways to approach target audiences to advertise new products or services that brands have to offer. This is why non-traditional advertising and organic product placement, among others, gain more and more relevance.