Where Does Your Audience Go for Video?

Cable? Maybe if they had it.

According to a new report by Think With Google on the latest in video trends, one in three consumers either currently does not have cable or never has had cable. In the media business, these consumers are known as “cord-cutters” and “cord-nevers,” respectively. Google’s study comes on the heels of other related news we published this spring…

• Over 50% of the U.S. population watches TV online at least once a month (“Digital TV Viewers Are Now The Majority”)
  
• If you took away their TV set, kids wouldn’t miss it much. Just don’t touch their mobile device or tablet (ibid).
  
• Most millennials watch TV and movies on their computer, smartphone, tablet, or gaming device (ibid).
  
• 70% of Americans binge-watch television content, averaging five episodes per session (“Millennials, Binge Watching & Lessons In Media Consumption”).
  
• In 2016, Netflix went global. The OTT service is now available in 130+ countries (“How the World Watches Netflix”)

How People Access Video

• Six out of 10 viewers prefer online video platforms to live TV.
  
• By 2025, half of viewers under the age of 32 will not subscribe to a pay TV service.

Where People Watch Video

• In an average month, 8 out of 10 18- to 49-year-olds watch YouTube.
  
• In 2015, 18- to 49-year-olds spent 4% less time watching TV, while time on YouTube went up 74%.

The Devices That They Use

• On mobile alone, YouTube reaches more 18- to 49-year-olds than any broadcast or cable TV network.
  
• Among millennials, YouTube accounts for two-thirds of the premium online video watched across devices.
  
• The time people spend watching YouTube on their TV has more than doubled year over year.

(Oh, and don’t forget even the traditional TV viewers are watching with their mobile device in hand.)

Why It Matters for YOUR Brand.
Even if your brand doesn’t use video (though we think you should), this matters. No matter what demographic, device, or video platform we’re talking about, all of these data sets and reports point back to one very essential truth:

Mass communication is on the way out. Communicating with a niche is the only way forward.

This isn’t some big groundbreaking truth. Social media knocked down those walls once and for all ten years ago. Yet so many brands continue to pitch a message that’s untargeted and irrelevant to the vast majority of people who see it. This is what TV did for years, partly because there wasn’t much of a choice. Blanketing an audience with a single, broad message no longer works.

We have more tools at our disposal for telling stories and enriching people now than ever before. #finallyHuman pic.twitter.com/cyR0sxGNDD

— Bob Hutchins (@BobHutchins) April 27, 2016

The new brands–the human brands–know how to tell the right stories to the right people through the right channels. The shift to digital video helps make those storytelling opportunities possible.

So, where does your audience go for video? They probably go to YouTube and Facebook. They might go to Netflix, Hulu, Snapchat, Instagram, Periscope, Vimeo, or a host of other platforms. One thing is for sure: they have their options, and they will go wherever the best stories in their tribe are being told.

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