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Marcus Johnson (00:00):

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(00:34):

Hey, gang, it's Friday, October 31st. Happiest of Halloween's. Paul, Jenny, Jason, and listeners, welcome to Behind the Numbers, the eMarketer video podcast made possible by Fetch Rewards.

(00:44):

I'm Marcus, and joining me for today's conversation, we have three people. We start with our Pittsburgh analyst, living up there in the great white north, it's Paul Briggs.

Paul Briggs (00:53):

Hey, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson (00:54):

Hello, sir.

(00:54):

We also have our VP of research joining us, residing in New York, it's Jennifer Pearson.

Jennifer Pearson (00:59):

Thanks. Excited to be here.

Marcus Johnson (01:00):

Absolutely.

(01:01):

And chief insight officer at GWI based in the UK, our special guest for today, Jason Mander.

Jason Mander (01:08):

Hey, thank you.

Marcus Johnson (01:09):

Hey, fella.

(01:10):

Okay, we start, anytime we have a special guest, with a speed intro.

(01:17):

So, Jason, what do you do, in a sentence?

Jason Mander (01:20):

So I'm chief insight officer. We survey millions of people per year, wide range of questions about their digital lives and lifestyles, and my job is to turn all of that data, all of those numbers into interesting stories and things that matter.

Marcus Johnson (01:33):

Very nice. And we're talking about a few of those stories today. But second question for you all real quick, Jason, I'll start with you. If you could snap your fingers and give yourself a skill, any skill, but just for 24 hours, and then it's gone, what would you pick?

Jason Mander (01:48):

I would want to be bilingual or trilingual. I'm married to a Maltese. Everyone from Malta speaks English, Italian and Maltese fluently. Be nice to have 24 hours where I could keep up.

Marcus Johnson (02:00):

Sounds good.

(02:02):

Jenny, how about you?

Jennifer Pearson (02:03):

I want to speed-read and get through all the books that I keep saying I need to, and I'm hoping 24 hours is enough in my long list that I can't get to, but I'd love to be able to do that.

Marcus Johnson (02:14):

Yeah. Oh, that sounds good. You'd have to disappear from your family, too, I guess.

Jennifer Pearson (02:18):

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (02:18):

Where's mum gone? She's just...

Jennifer Pearson (02:20):

Yeah. Just reading for 24 hours.

Marcus Johnson (02:22):

If she's in the library, don't bother her.

(02:24):

Paul, what do you have for us?

Paul Briggs (02:26):

Yeah, I think for me it'd being able to ski moguls, and I know it's only 24 hours, but I would ski for 24 hours straight on the toughest moguls in the world. I could ski pretty well, but moguls have always been pretty choppy for me. But I think that would be that 24-hour skill. If I could snap my fingers, that would be heaven for me.

Marcus Johnson (02:45):

Yeah, very nice. Very nice, folks.

(02:48):

With our guests, today's real topic, How Media Behaviors Are Changing Around the World.

(03:00):

All right, so, Jason, you've been helping your marketer put this report together. It is our Global Media Intelligence Report [inaudible 00:03:08] doing it for years where we collaborate with you guys on this research where we survey a bunch of people around the world, pull out some stories. But do you want to give us a bit of a better explainer than that in terms of what you've been up to?

Jason Mander (03:22):

Yeah, sure. So this research is based on surveys among just under a million people across 50 countries around the world. They answer a range of questions about the devices, apps, social media that they're using, how they're consuming various channels and types of media. We break all that down by country, by age, by gender. We look at how things are changing over time, so it gives you a really strong view on how consumer behaviors are changing, or in fact staying the same.

Marcus Johnson (03:55):

Yeah, it's absolutely fascinating research. It's very easy to think that just because you have a smartphone, because you're streaming things, because you are listening to digital audio that everybody else is, and it can be further from the truth.

(04:09):

Paul, you have been the lead author on this research for this year, I think in years prior as well. Do you want to talk to us a bit about some of the main stories that emerged from this piece?

Paul Briggs (04:22):

Sure. I've been involved for... I think this is my third year. We've been doing the Global Media Intelligence Report for 15 years now, in collaboration with Starcom all that time, and also using GWI as our data partner since 2018. So the trends that Jason mentions, over time, are really evident, especially when you look at a wide range of years. This year, we look at some of the key areas, like viewership is one key area that we look at and analyze, and really it's about spending time with different types of content, be it on streaming apps, or on broadcast TV, or short video. One of the key takeaways this year was that across all the regions, if you look at penetration of streaming video usage, it exceeds broadcast TV in every single region.

(05:17):

It's usually sort of over 90% penetration in most of those regions. So as a takeaway for media buyers, really leaning into the ad-supported video streaming services that are out there as a way to reach consumers, very good first piece of advice, but also, in many regions, broadcast TV still has really solid reach, so it's important to continue campaigns in that format as well. So how do we get at that music streaming details? Maybe Jason can help us.

(05:53):

In the questioning, Jason, by country, do you ask them about how they consume streaming, or what services they use, or how do you guys go about that?

Jason Mander (06:04):

Yeah, sure. So when we're asking about the behavior itself, so how long do you listen to music streaming services, there'll be some localized examples. Some of those examples are obviously going to have global relevance. So something like Spotify or Apple Music will probably appear in most countries, but then it'll be supplemented by region or market-specific ones. So if we were talking about TV streaming services, and the UK as an example, BBC iPlayer might appear as one of the examples there. There's also follow-up questions where we present a long list of market-specific options. So anything that's a viable, half-popular at least, option in your country will appear in the survey.

Paul Briggs (06:45):

Yeah, I think that those country-specific or regional-specific platforms are really important to get. I know in Canada, we have a streaming platform called Crave, which is from Bell Media, so that's very specific to Canada. I'm sure there's many, many examples across the world of country-specific streaming apps out there.

Marcus Johnson (07:09):

So one of the storylines from the piece, Paul, listenership, you say, has gone digital, but radio is hanging on. Where did you find radio is highest across the world?

Paul Briggs (07:21):

Yeah, so sort of western markets, Western Europe, if you look at Western Europe compared to the rest of the world, it's like more than five hours weekly spent with radio in Western Europe. That's pretty similar to a lot of Western regions, but if you look at what's happening in the Asian regions that we look at, that's the lowest time spent with radio anywhere, just over... roughly about an hour and a half a day compared to sort of that greater than five hours in Western Europe. So a big, big change, big difference. With audio, there's sort of three areas that are measured here. One is music streaming, penetration and time spent, as well as podcast time spent as well. So those three legs of audio, radio, podcast, music streaming, tell a story of how people listen to audio throughout their day, and over the course of the week.

Marcus Johnson (08:15):

Yeah.

Jennifer Pearson (08:16):

Yeah, some standouts in Greece, 8 and 10 listen to radio, whereas Vietnam, for example, it's just 4 and 10 are average and listening to radio.

Jason Mander (08:28):

I think the age story is really powerful, as it often is, but it shines through really strongly here. So if you look at the 16 to 24 cohort, they're spending an hour and a quarter on average on radio per week, versus seven hours on music streaming. If you then look at the 55 to 64 cohort, actually it's quite equal, about three to three and a half hours on both of those. So the age of your target audience, it's going to have a profound impact on how they're spending their time across those three different audio types.

Marcus Johnson (09:00):

Yeah. What countries were those?

Jason Mander (09:04):

Well, I was talking about age groups, sorry, on average across the [inaudible 00:09:08]-

Marcus Johnson (09:05):

Oh, across everything?

Jason Mander (09:05):

... markets. Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (09:10):

Oh, fascinating. Okay, okay.

(09:14):

It's interesting because, yeah, radio, it's traditional media, and it doesn't get talked about nearly as much because digital has consumed everything. But we were talking about it on the show recently, in the US it's still a $9 billion space. There's still a ton of money that's going there. And that brings me to something I was going to say before, which was that, even though you just mentioned, Paul, streaming has overtaken linear in terms of how people consume television across the world, but the ad dollars, like in the US, it has overtaken as one of those very markets, but in terms of the ad dollars, CTV ad dollars is still a third, and then linear makes up two-thirds of the total where the ad dollars going into a TV screen pie. So the ad dollar is still lagging quite far behind the viewership part.

Paul Briggs (10:03):

I think [inaudible 00:10:03] terms of CTV, I think a lot of that has to do with the maturity of the ad-buying ecosystem.

Marcus Johnson (10:07):

Absolutely.

Paul Briggs (10:08):

And I think that is sort of... as that matures, it'll catch up and far exceed linear TV. But in the case of audio, local radio, I think, is still a very powerful advertising medium. So whatever town you are in, if you're in the car commuting to work, what have you, there's a ton. Majority is hyperlocal advertising about something in your geographic location in your town or your city. So that still maintains its effectiveness for advertisers, that hyperlocal aspect to radio.

Jason Mander (10:42):

I think that's a key point, right? Throughout this data, you can't really take a global snapshot. You need to understand what's happening in your country, or in your region. And if we talk about broadcast TV, there are still 34 out of the 50 countries that are spending more than five hours per week, but then go to France and that climbs to nearly nine hours. They're probably the biggest country out of the 50 for consuming it. So you could have one country that's got nearly nine hours, and another that's down to two. You've really got to understand the particular country and the audience you're going after.

Marcus Johnson (11:13):

Yeah. And just to reiterate the point that this research, it was done across 50 markets, it's not just high-level. This is kind of what we saw from a top-down, it's country-specific. Every country has all these specific breakouts and numbers for itself. So there's a ton of detail, but if you want to zoom out and get a sense of what's going on from 50,000 feet, then you can.

(11:38):

Speaking of that, Jason, one of the other storylines that came out of this was regarding short-form video. Tell us about that one.

Jason Mander (11:45):

Yeah. I think one of the key stories there is just how much time is being spent on what you would classify as social. So within this research we talked about traditional social media, so defined as reading posts and interacting with ads, that sort of stuff. Then we talked about short-form video, defined as reels and TikToks, they're still very much part the social ecosystem, and we also asked about longer-form videos, so vlogs. Now, all of that is still really social, and the global average across those three is nearly 20 hours per week. Let's put that in context. That's about the same amount of time for social as for broadcast TV, TV streaming, gaming, and podcasts put together. So there is a lot of time being spent here, and a lot of chance to capture attention.

(12:40):

And the figures in some of the countries are just eye-watering, 8, 9, 10 hours being sent on TikToks and reels, and comparable. And you might sort of think, well, if one country's big on short-form, maybe they're lower on long-form. But no, there's a strong correlation between all three. So a country like Brazil is a good example. It's one of the leading countries in all three of those metrics. What we tend to see is that countries that have always been a bit more conservative or traditional when it comes to social as a category are also less engaged with short-form videos. So particularly, a couple of the APAC markets, but also Northern Europe, places like Germany, Austria, Belgium, and even the Scandinavian countries. Look at Denmark, Norway, Sweden, they're really high on things like TV streaming, or music streaming, but they fall down on short-form video because they've never had that sort of mass enthusiasm for social.

Marcus Johnson (13:45):

You were saying 20 hours a week. That's total social, right?

Jason Mander (13:50):

Yeah, across social media, short-form video, long-form video.

Marcus Johnson (13:54):

Yeah. So one day a week, one full day, just the whole Monday is just spent on social media, not eating food, or catching up with friends, or working, just eat, just social.

Jason Mander (14:10):

But in a way it's because the reasons we have for using social have changed. So we capture motivations as well. And over time, you can see decreases in things like communicating with friends, posting about my life, but increases in, basically, consuming content. So-

Marcus Johnson (14:28):

Social and scrolling.

Jason Mander (14:28):

... scrolling browsers, watching videos, it's an entertainment-first ecosystem now. If anything, social media is just a bit less social than it used to be.

Marcus Johnson (14:38):

Yeah.

Jennifer Pearson (14:38):

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (14:40):

Jenny, you had a theme from the report for us as well. What's yours?

Jennifer Pearson (14:45):

Yeah, this was what technology our respondents are excited about, and it was in particular for artificial intelligence. And so, I think it's a decent gauge of where the optimism is in AI. So the leading, and maybe this correlates, Jason, what you were talking about with Brazil. Brazil was the leader in this, and that 66% of those surveyed were excited about AI, and then other high countries where Vietnam and Israel and Colombia. But then, on the lower end of the spectrum are Croatia, New Zealand. The US is at 35% of respondents who are excited about AI. So just generally, it's lower in Europe, and a higher excitement in Latin America is an interesting theme. And I think it does correlate a bit with some of the more social-leaning countries that may be excited about a new technology.

Marcus Johnson (14:46):

Yeah.

Paul Briggs (15:47):

Yeah, and I think it definitely correlates to age of the population as well. When we looked at it, ranking the top 10 countries or top 20, they were generally the youngest countries in terms of median age. So that is probably the strongest indicator about enthusiasm for AI is the relative age of the population.

Marcus Johnson (16:09):

Okay.

Jason Mander (16:10):

It's also interesting here that in most of the other things we've talked about, things like gender, income are relatively equal. Here, they start becoming much more meaningful. So in every single region, except East Asia and Oceania, men have a significant lead over women, as much as 10, 12, 14 points, and also, the higher income groups lead the lower income groups. That one kind of makes sense, but the gender one stood out as being pretty interesting.

Jennifer Pearson (16:37):

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (16:38):

I was trying to figure out the correlation, and my initial thought was that high developments in AI leads to high concern from the population, like somewhere in the U.S. Is that a likely?

Jennifer Pearson (16:54):

So it's funny you say that, Marcus. I did a little research. There was a dual light study of consumers in Europe who over 50% didn't have confidence that the government would regulate properly, and those are some of the lower excited consumers' respondents about AI. So I do think there is some correlation there.

Marcus Johnson (17:15):

Yeah, okay. Yeah, I know too much about it, and how it works, and now I don't want to use it anymore.

(17:24):

Very nice.

(17:25):

So a bunch of things there. There are more as well in the reports, so not just those few that we talked about.

(17:31):

To wrap up this episode, I asked the gang if they could identify a hidden gem of a stat, if you will, and so turned into a game, of course. And so, I'm going to grade them and decide which one is the most interesting hidden gem of a stat.

(17:49):

So we'll start with Paul. What did you find that maybe wasn't a blatantly obvious theme, but something you found particularly interesting?

Paul Briggs (17:59):

I looked at... so the one new country we have this year, so last year we had 49 countries, this year we have 50, and that 50th country is Croatia, and lo and behold, they lead the world in smartwatch adoption. So that would make me think that they love their fitness, or they love their tech, but I thought that was a pretty cool initial sort of piece of data from Croatia.

Marcus Johnson (18:27):

Yeah. Is it like they just lead it, or is this a sizable gap between them and number two?

Paul Briggs (18:32):

I think it's probably incrementally ahead of whoever's next.

Jason Mander (18:36):

It's very close, yeah, but they are ahead.

Marcus Johnson (18:38):

Okay, fascinating.

(18:41):

Jason, do you know if off the top of your head is that that their 2nd through 10 is Asia, and Croatia stands out amongst Europe, or I'm expecting the next 10 to be in a similar region?

Jason Mander (18:56):

For the smart category, generally, Western Europe and North America features very strongly, so most of the top 10 would be European markets.

Marcus Johnson (19:04):

Okay, okay. Maybe that's got something to do with the cost and affordability.

(19:09):

Yeah, okay. Fascinating.

(19:10):

All right, Paul, good start. You came to play.

(19:12):

Jenny, what do you have for us?

Jennifer Pearson (19:15):

So actually our first year with GWI partnership was 2018, and I dug up that in our archives to get some old, obscure data point that Japan's smart TV ownership is really the lowest, one of the lowest in the world. And in 2018, it was between 7 and 8% owned a smart TV, and now it's just inched up to just under 12% of those in Japan who own a smart TV. For context, it's 63% in the US, so it is quite a bit lower smart TV ownership.

Marcus Johnson (19:54):

Okay. So it's notched up a few in terms of ownership of a smart TV?

Jennifer Pearson (19:58):

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (19:59):

Wow. So what's going on? Because, boy, I saw in your report you were saying Japan and South Korea are clinging to broadcast, despite world-class digital infrastructure, as you say, and South Korea has nearly twice as much broadcast as it does streaming. I wonder what's going on there. That is a good one.

Jason Mander (20:18):

There's a couple of things, I would say, at play there. Japan is often a bit of an exception when it comes to technology adoption. One of the reasons is the relatively old structure of the population in terms of age. Another is definitions of technology, and what we mean by a smart television, what someone in Japan might perceive, and Japanese cultural answering patterns also take a role here. So we typically find respondents there are less likely to disclose what they personally own, and it could be more effective if you ask, what would the typical person in this country own? But because our methodology is the same questions in the same way in all countries, that's the way it's always been.

Marcus Johnson (21:06):

Fascinating.

(21:08):

Okay, very nice.

(21:10):

Jason, you're up.

Jason Mander (21:12):

Yeah, I sort of went across both of these areas, actually. I looked at smart home products, and to pick up what you were saying at the start, you sometimes think everyone must have something because you do. We've got a nine-year-old, so our house is full of smart home products to try and make that a little bit easier. But actually, it's only 20% globally who own a smart home product. It's going up every year, but it's quite a slow increase. So going back to 2019, and it was 11%. Now fast-forward to this year, it's still only 20%, but the UK is the leading country in the world, which always makes me happy.

Marcus Johnson (21:47):

Wow. Is it significantly over-indexing or [inaudible 00:21:52]?

Jason Mander (21:51):

The UK is at 28%, so versus the global average of 20, that's a fair over-index.

Marcus Johnson (21:55):

Yeah, it's not nothing. Okay.

(22:00):

Very nice.

(22:01):

I wonder also the smart home thing, I wonder how many people have one barely use it. It's there and it shows you the photos, it's carousel photos in the back, like your Alexa device or whatever, your Echo, but people who... actual usage of and what they're using them for, I guess, that would also be quite interesting.

(22:23):

Very nice. Okay. I think the winner has to be... doesn't have to be, but I've made it Jenny. Jenny is today's winner. That was fascinating. And then also with the assist from Jason explaining some of the reasons why that might be the case. It is really interesting. But smartwatches in Croatia as well, very good. Croatia, brand new country. The 50th of our 50 that we have for you in this full report, which is already out, came out yesterday, and it's the Global Media Intelligence Report 2025, How Media Behaviors Are Shifting in 50 Markets Worldwide. The link is of course in the show notes, or you can enter emarketer.com if you're Pro+ subscriber.

(23:07):

Thank you so much to my guests today for going over some of the trends from the reports, but we barely scratched the surface. There's a ton more there, so go check it out.

(23:15):

Thank you, first, to Paul.

Paul Briggs (23:17):

Thanks for having me, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson (23:18):

Absolutely.

(23:19):

And thank you to Jenny.

Jennifer Pearson (23:20):

Thank you so much.

Marcus Johnson (23:21):

Yes, yes.

(23:22):

And of course to Jason for joining us again.

Jason Mander (23:24):

Thanks, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson (23:25):

Yes, sir.

(23:26):

Thanks to the whole Asian crew and to everyone for listening to Behind the Numbers, the eMarketer video podcast made possible by Fetch. Make sure you subscribe and follow. If you can, leave a rating and review if the mood takes you. We'll be back on Monday, of course. Of course we will. Happiest of weekends.