YouGov’s International Media Consumption Report sheds light on how people’s behaviours and habits have shifted during the Coronavirus pandemic. In this article we explore the section on the impact Covid-19 has had across the world.
Even as the coronavirus pandemic empties cities and commuter routes around the world, consumption of out-of-home advertising still outstrips print readership in most markets, according to a new report by YouGov.
‘As you would imagine, outdoor advertising has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, particularly by the huge decline in commuting and international travel, said Julian Newby, sector head of media at YouGov, who added, yet our data suggests that this medium has still gained significant traction, even among an essential travel audience.’
Thirty-three percent of people still say they have seen a billboard or a bus-stop poster in the past week, according to figures from YouGov’s International Media Consumption report, which surveyed more than 22,000 people across 17 markets.
Based on that figure, billboards reach more people than print magazines and newspapers in most markets. They also reach more people than emerging channels like podcasts, which have an average listenership of 13% across all markets, and on-demand radio, which 16% of people around the world listen to at least once a week.
‘Engagement does vary according to differing behaviours from country to country, but YouGov will be tracking daily to see the extent this medium will bounce back as the world is on course to open back up again’, said Newby.
Not every market conforms to this dynamic, though. For instance, print readership is especially strong in India, where 46% of survey respondents (a nationally urban representative sample) read a newspaper within the past week, and in Sweden, where that figure was 44%.
‘Sweden seems to have strong publishers who are very respected and dominate the market,’ said Newby.
YouGov’s report, which interrogates people’s reading, watching and listening habits to help media planners navigate the coronavirus landscape, also shows how dominant digital media consumption has become around the world.
According to YouGov’s report, 60% of total respondents had used social media within the past week. The country with the lowest uptake of streaming services on TV was Hong Kong, at 29%, but even that figure was higher than the global average for watching recorded TV, or reading a print publication.
But the data also showed that it was unwise to make assumptions about media consumption within a country based on the behaviour of its close neighbours. In the UK, for instance, 17% of the population had watched live TV on a phone, tablet or computer within the past week, while 29% had done the same in France.
Country demographics were a slightly more reliable predictor of media consumption behaviour, said Newby, as were instances where a country had leapfrogged a generation of technology, for instance in China where the bulk of the population had skipped desktop computers and gone straight to mobile.
‘In Asia Pacific and younger countries,’ said Newby, ‘we see more online video consumption but fewer streaming services, probably because of the cost, and we see considerably less radio and TV – apart from India which is a big outlier for print.’
Despite the shift to new media, live TV remains relatively strong and dominates other forms of traditional media. YouGov’s data showed that across most of the 17 markets in which it conducted its survey, over 50% of respondents had watched live TV within the past week. The UAE, Singapore and China were the only markets where less than half of respondents said they had watched live TV within the past week.
You can download YouGov’s report here.
