Article: UK Consumers Are Doing More Online, More Often, With More Devices

UK internet users have embraced the web and its possibilities like never before, although some demographic groups remain offline.

eMarketer estimates more than 44 million people are online in the UK in 2010 and nearly 70% of all households have broadband access.

“The cultural divide between web users and non-users is widening,” said Karin von Abrams, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report “UK Internet Users and Usage: Top 2010 Trends.” “For the majority of marketers, though, this is not a problem; their audiences are online in ever-greater numbers. Moreover, internet users of all ages are increasingly adept at multitasking, connecting with brands on multiple platforms and responding directly to campaigns, promotions and other offers online or via mobile.”

Mobile web use is up sharply in the UK. About 31% of internet users said they went online via mobile phone in 2010, compared to 23% in 2009, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported. A further 26% said they accessed the web through a laptop’s wireless connection away from home or work. Men were more likely than women to take advantage of mobile access options.

“Growing numbers of people are using mobile phones, tablets or netbooks to access the internet,” said von Abrams. “Much of this activity still takes place at home, but web users are quickly discovering the entertainment and utility value of being able to network, watch video, read, search, shop and transact on the go.

“E-tailers and brands may struggle to keep up with the demands of this audience as mobile takes a central role.”

The full report, “UK Internet Users and Usage: Top 2010 Trends,” also answers these key questions: How did the UK’s online population change in 2010? Which online activities are most popular? What can we learn from UK consumers’ responses to tablets such as the Apple iPad and Amazon Kindle? How is the UK’s mobile internet marketplace developing?

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Check out today’s other article, “Could Brands Improve Their Outreach to Bloggers?”

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Article: Will Halloween Spook Consumers?

Seasonal shopping “events” are de rigueur for retailers—dads and grads, summer vacation, back to school, holidays and, oh yes, Halloween. In New York City, for instance, pharmacy chains and mass merchants mounted candy displays on August 30, two months ahead of the scarefest. But will consumers, who continue to hold tight to their purse strings, pony up for the spooky antics this year?

The answer is yes, at least according to the National Retail Federation’s “2010 Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey,” conducted by BIGresearch.

Americans will spend, on average, $66.28 for costumes, candy and decorations, up from last year’s $56.31 and comparable to the $66.54 average amount in 2008. Total spending for the holiday is expected to reach $5.8 billion. Consumers will allocate most of their Halloween purchases to costumes ($23.37), while handing over an average of $20.29 on candy, $18.66 for decorations and $3.95 buying greeting cards.

The data reveals that four out of 10 adults (40.1%) plan to dress up this Halloween, up from 33.4% in 2009. Notably, 11.5% plan to outfit their pets. Whether this translates into the hum of registers at retail is the question: Among the 30.1% of survey respondents who said the economy would affect their Halloween activities, the study found that 86.8% planned to spend less overall on Halloween, with 45.1% saying they would buy less candy this year and 19.5% making their own costumes rather than purchasing them.

In addition, 33.3% of those polled said they’ll throw or attend a party, and 72.2% will hand out candy. Halloween is ranked second only to the winter holidays when it comes to consumers’ plans (50.1%) to decorate their homes and yards.

Separately, when it comes to online shopping for Halloween goodies, a survey conducted for Internet Retailer by Lightspeed Research found that 35% of Halloween shoppers will buy holiday goods online and that 71% of those shopping online will spend between $25 and $100. HalloweenCostumes.com told Internet Retailer it has seen a 20% to 30% increase in 2010 sales and a 2% increase in average order values. That’s not too scary.

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Article: Mobile Consumers See Value in Advertising

A recent study by mobile ad network InMobi and comScore uncovered some good news for marketers: Consumers are getting more comfortable with seeing ads on their mobile devices. Of the nearly 4,400 US mobile phone users surveyed, 38% felt mobile ads “serve an important purpose,” while an additional 25% stated they are getting accustomed to viewing mobile ads. While 10% of respondents described themselves as somewhat uncomfortable with mobile ads, only 12% felt they were intrusive.

That’s a strikingly positive result overall, and it speaks to the importance of the value exchange in mobile advertising. Mobile consumers are progressively more accepting of advertising on their devices, but they also expect something tangible in return for their attention.

As Nielsen learned in a survey of connected device owners, 59% described themselves as “ok with advertising” if viewing ads meant they could access free content in return. And of course, ads that were more customized and relevant to their interests and location got a better reception from consumers, and also made them more inclined to respond.

The InMobi-comScore study reached similar conclusions, with personalized ads actually outranking free content and phone bill discounts in terms of what mobile users would accept in return for viewing ads. These findings also coincided closely with those of Oracle’s September 2010 “Opportunity Calling: The Future of Mobile Communications” survey, which revealed 54% of adult mobile users would be willing to listen to or watch mobile ads in exchange for a 5% credit on their monthly phone bill.

“It’s very expensive to change consumer behavior,” said Alex Andronikov, executive vice president and general manager, mobile enterprise business at mobile marketing firm Adenyo, in a recent interview with eMarketer. By the same token, changing marketer behavior is often slow and challenging. But with the value exchange associated with mobile advertising, both consumers and marketers are learning to meet in the middle.

Check out today’s other article, “Moms Go Online en Masse.”

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Blog: Can RIM Satisfy Both Consumers and the Enterprise with Its Tablet?

Thanks in large part to the success of iPad, 2010 is shaping up to be the year of the tablet. Apple succeeded in resurrecting a moribund form factor and endowing it with new life and a broader appeal. Much of that appeal stems from familiarity: the iPad is not only immediately recognizable to the millions of iPhone and iPod users but also draws from the same pool of content (music, games, video, apps) on which owners of other Apple products have come to rely.

The next 12 months will see a raft of tablet introductions as other manufacturers rush to play catch-up with Apple and capture a piece of this emerging market. For the most part, the tablet market is likely to emerge as another battleground in the increasingly fierce mobile OS war between Apple and Google. As in the smartphone market, Apple has some advantage because the iTunes and App stores have a larger pool of content than Android Market, but the increasing scale of Android devices is helping giving the Android content marketplace greater appeal.

A wild card in the tablet market is BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM). Today it introduced the PlayBook, a tablet running on a new OS derived from QNX, the software company RIM acquired from Harman International in April (at the time, the acquisition seemed to herald a push into the automotive telematics space).

As with its smartphones, RIM faces unique challenges as it prepares to enter the tablet market. Although BlackBerry holds the largest share of the US smartphone market, and its devices often rank among the top 10 best-selling phones (meaning that many consumers are buying them), RIM is nonetheless associated with the enterprise. As such, it faces the perennial issue of how to balance the needs of its core business customers with the differing demands of its consumer audience.

In a recent blog post, AMD’s Pat Moorhead shared his “wish list” of features he’d like to see in a RIM tablet. It includes access to enterprise applications (network and SharePoint access, printing to networked computers, use of corporate web apps such as budgeting and expenses  and BlackBerry apps such as e-mail, calendar and address book), video conferencing and peer-to-peer resource sharing with BlackBerry smartphones for things like phone calls and wireless tethering.

Some of these features would undoubtedly serve consumer tablet use as well, but would also edge the tablet closer to a computing device rather than a portable entertainment and media consumption device. There’s nothing wrong with that approach per se. In fact, unlike the smartphone market, where device size and specs are fairly well established, tablet manufacturers have more latitude to experiment with different screen sizes and device features. Some tablets will be more smartphone-like while others will be more computer-like.

But satisfying both sets of demands equally well is difficult – a lesson RIM has learned with the latest BlackBerry smartphones.  A new and untested OS and RIM’s somewhat spotty history with touchscreen user interfaces represent additional hurdles. Appealing entertainment features combined with a robust enterprise tool set could make for a crossover hit, but there are still many question marks.

UPDATE: PlayBook is the official name of RIM’s new tablet. Full specs available here. As expected, the PlayBook attempts to satisfy both constituencies, but will enterprise customers be tempted to “Play” along or throw out the PlayBook? The feature set says yes, but the name says no.

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