Digital American Newsletter

Baby Boomers are not the largest audience on YouTube, but they are the most likely to engage with your videos—by watching, believing and sharing them.

Over 95% of online Americans over 55 have visited YouTube. Almost a quarter of the platform’s monthly users are Boomers, and their time spent on the site increased 80% more than other demographics’ in the past year.

Baby Boomers are 10%+ more likely than Millennials and Gen Xers to watch YouTube ads, regardless of whether they are on their phone, tablet or laptop. In fact, they are most likely to click through and take action when using their smartphone.

Boomers believe YouTube is more trustworthy and find its ads much less annoying than other generations do.

55+ year olds are more likely than younger Americans to watch YouTube ads across a wide range of categories including food, CPG and beauty products. At the extreme, Boomers are 73% more likely that others to view a retailer video.

To top it off, Boomers are twice as likely as any other generation to share YouTube content with their friends.

Sources: Business Insider 2017,Comscore 2017, MediaKix 2017, Strike Social 2017

Word of mouth marketing—which long held the #1 spot for influencing consumers—has dropped to #2 for brand discovery. Search engine marketing is now in first place. That’s just one of the fascinating findings from Globalwebindex.

Virtually across the board, consumers think digital marketing is more effective for finding new brands than traditional media. TV, historically the strongest, broadest reaching media, has already been eclipsed by search engine marketing. It will soon be surpassed by online ads as well, based on the current trend among 18-24 year olds.

Even the more novel forms of digital marketing are becoming dominant. Consumers under 55 years old are more likely to find a new brand via an ad in an app than from a radio commercial. Pre-roll ads in online videos drive more brand discovery than real world billboards.

Amazon continues to grow its consumer influence. Experts differ about just how powerful it is—some say it has more impact than search engines, others disagree. Regardless, it is an increasingly effective way for brands to introduce themselves to new consumers.

Sources: Globalwebindex 2017, Marketing Charts 2016, Search Engine Land 2017

Since the acquisition of Whole Foods by Amazon, everyone seems hungry for information about online grocery shopping. I thought I would indulge your obsession with a handful of fast facts.

• In the past 6 months, over 30% of Americans purchased groceries online at least once.
• Ecommerce sales represent 28% of the CPG beauty category and 27% of pet care products, but only 3% of dry grocery.
• Online sales—rather than brick and mortar sales—are driving the majority of growth in most grocery departments.
• In the general merchandise and beauty care categories, online sales are driving all the growth. Brick and mortar sales actually declined over the past 12 months.
• Subscriptions represent a significant portion of ecommerce grocery revenue with 49% of men’s shave products, 23% of nuts, and 19% of diapers sold via monthly subscription services.
• Geolocation apps, order wands, and buy again buttons are some of the ecommerce features consumers like most.
• Wanting to pick their own produce is the #1 reason why consumers have not tried online grocery shopping.
• The people buying CPG products online are exactly who you think they are: Millennials, higher income, well educated, and urban consumers.

Sources: Deloitte 9/17, FMI 9/17, Harris Poll 6/16, Nielsen 9/17

Recently, Amazon unveiled Spark, a social network focused on—what else—shopping. While other social platforms started with friends interacting, and now hope to add ecommerce, Amazon began with shopping and now wants to make it social.

Here’s what you need to know about Spark.

• Spark is centered on a feed of visual posts, organized by interest.
• Members post images of recent purchases or things they are thinking about buying and others can like or comment.
• Spark’s polling feature lets people ask friends’ opinion about whether they should buy an item.
• Users can make purchases right in the app, with just two clicks. That’s more streamlined than buying via other social networks.
• Anyone can look at the Spark feed, but only Prime members can post, comment, or buy.
• Brands are not yet allowed on Spark, but early adopters are leveraging influencers to post their products.
• There are 80 million Amazon Prime members who spend an average of $600 more annually than non-Prime shoppers, so Spark users are an attractive target market.
• Forecasters project that over 50% of ecommerce dollars will flow through Amazon by 2021.
• Spark is currently only available as a feature within Amazon’s iPhone app.

Sources: Adweek 2017,Business2Community 2017, Forbes 2017, Media Shift 2017, Motley Fool 2017

The best way to turn brand fans into buyers is to answer questions on Facebook. 49% of consumers are motivated by seeing companies respond directly to consumers, vs 45% who purchase based on promotions & contests and 42% who react positively to informational content.

On the other hand, almost three quarters of Americans are turned off by brands sharing political content, and the vast majority do not like snarky humor or slang in posts. Mocking other brands, or consumers, is frowned on as well. When fans get annoyed by a brand on social media, over half unfollow it.

According to consumers, they like brands to express their personality on Facebook, and look for companies that are honest, friendly, helpful and funny. Americans are more likely to engage with content that reveals a brand’s authentic personality. They become most closely tied to companies that post a combination of personality-driven and informational content.

Across industries, brands’ response rate to consumers’ questions is pitiful, ranging from 7% (media and entertainment companies) to 19% (retailers.) Consumer packaged goods companies reply to 16% of fan questions.

Sources: Management Science 2017, Social Media Examiner 2017, Sprout Social 2017