comScore has released its latest report looking at the digital media consumption habits of American consumers, offering yet another reminder that brands must keep up in order to maintain mindshare.
The report, available here, found that the vast majority of digital media was being consumed within apps. There was also growth in mobile web, although not anywhere near as significant as apps.
This means that travel marketers looking to build awareness must consider how this in-app consumption affects their campaigns.
As fewer folks consume media on desktop, there will be diminished opportunties to pull potential customers from content to the branded website. Offering quality content is increasingly more important, and brands that can deliver value in-app (say with solid destination information) will more likely capture attention.
Even more revealing is the rapid drop of consumption habits on desktop in the past year - this is no longer something that is gradually happening year-over-year, but a quick shift that will catch some brands off-guard.
Remember, this is important for anyone creating apps - especially those looking to either use digital media for inbound marketing or those seeking to target digital media consumption for advertising.
Another area of concern is how hard it is to entice consumers to download new apps - 65.5% in this particular cohort downloaded not a single new app in the three month average. And the most used app on a consumer's phone received a near-majority of time spent, with 3 out of 4 minutes spent on the top 4 apps.
This underscores how vital it is to a) have an app that works well, and b) to understand that sometimes it's better to target on a third-party app that's popular with the target demographic.
The breakdown of categories skewing towards desktop and mobile is also quite revealing - especially as "search/navigation" still dominates on desktop. This is the area of import for many travel marketers, although brands like Expedia are developing tablet experiences that might finally push travel searches more comfortably on tablets than desktops.
The report goes into much more detail, and is really of interest to anyone pursuing a digital strategy in today's shifting media landscape.
NB: Office desk image courtesy Shutterstock.