IPC Media has today unveiled new research among 3500 consumers – Connected Consumers – that gives in-depth insight into how, when, where and why they interact with IPC’s brands across multiple platforms. The study identified three new consumer mind states and shed light on to consumers’ journey across different platforms.
Amanda Wigginton, director of Insight, IPC Advertising: “The fact that consumers are connected to magazine brands via multiple platforms, will come as no surprise, but for us it was the level of engagement, their migration across different platforms and what action was sparked by different platforms that was interesting to explore.
“What was really clear was that the habits picked up from traditional print magazine consumption still remain and are being transferred as consumers seamlessly mix old and new platforms. Consumers still ‘memory bank’, draw inspiration from magazine brand content or pass on recommendations to friends and family. But what has changed is that they now offer consumers more opportunities to do this across a number of platforms. Ultimately this reinforces the power of magazine brands, irrespective of platform.”
Three new consumer mind states
Connected Consumers has uncovered that traditional ‘me time’ has evolved and consumers no longer turn to magazine brands solely when they are looking to relax. They instead turn to those brands at multiple times throughout the day, with all types of content, including commercial content and advertising, helping fulfil three key mind states – catch-up time, focus time and down time.
Catch-up time – is typically in the morning when consumers turn to apps and social media to catch up on happenings. Critical in this mindstate is ease of access and the ability to get reliable and trusted updates to bring them up to speed quickly
Focus time – is typically during the day when consumers tend to be more time deprived. They know what information they want and they know how to get it. Social media, apps, websites and print, all fulfil this need
Down time – is when consumers are at their most receptive to advertising. Down time is typically in the evening, when people are relaxing or the children are in bed. Content is consumed across all platforms in this mindstate
Multiplatform influence
The different platforms – online, tablet, print, mobile and social – all have important roles to play in influencing consumers throughout the four stages in the path towards purchase: spark, search, shop and share.
Magazine brands spark ideas across all platforms. 89% of consumers get ideas from print, 81% from online, 85% get ideas from digital editions, 77% from apps and 72% are inspired by social media.
When looking at which platforms trigger online searches, 57% are driven by the print editions, 60% by websites and 67%by digital editions. After seeing something in an app, 54% have searched for more information online.
Print had the most amount of influence over actual purchase from a shop or online, with 45% of respondents indicating print had inspired a purchase, compared with 40% who indicated that digital editions motivated them to buy, 38% for apps and 34% from the web.
Print still leads the way in generating word of mouth buzz, with64% indicating they have shared from print brands and 52% shared from both digital editions and apps. Just under half, 49% shared from the internet and 36% from social media channels.
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