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14.6.2010 TV Is Still the Driver of Conversation

Once, TV was the symbolic water-cooler that drove consumer conversations. It still is. But the tube is being upstaged by the web, which now nearly matches it in terms of influence on conversations, according to a new study from Yahoo and Keller Fay Group.

Keller Fay has taken the air out of the online buzz balloon for years with survey research finding that most discussion about brands still happens face-to-face, and are influenced far more by traditional media than what happens online.

But that is changing. The internet is growing as the channel that influences or prompts those conversations, however they occur. The web influenced nearly 15% of consumer discussions about brands in January 2010, according to the survey, up from 12% from a year earlier and nearly matching the 16% of such conversations inspired by TV ads or shows.

TV's impact on word-of-mouth remained constant year over year, while the internet's grew substantially. This coincides with the mainstreaming of social networks that facilitate online sharing and communication, like Facebook, which nearly doubled to 133 million unique U.S. visitors in January from 69 million the prior year, according to Compete.com.

The vast majority of consumer conversations about brands take place face-to-face, which accounts for 76% of consumer brand mentions vs. only 7% that happen online. The rest are mainly by phone. But the internet is growing as a channel that influences or prompts those conversations however, or wherever, they occur.
Oddly, the internet doesn't appear to be replacing other media as an influence over conversations. In addition to TV, which remained stable, print drove a fairly constant 10% of brand-related conversations over the 18 months from July 2008 to January 2010, while the percentage driven by in-store or point-of-sale displays rose from around 8% in January 2009 to 9% in January 2010.

B.L. 14.6.2010