Trends by the Canada Media Fund has released the second part of its research into Discoverability and discovered that Canadian viewers are both aspirational and inspirational:
“All they are looking for is to be happy, have the best day possible and — ultimately — be validated and inspire their friends. In a nutshell, they are seeking to live a fulfilling experience.”
Other takeaways, quoting liberally:
- The more audiences are offered the convenience of on-demand content and a varied range of content to choose, the more they watch content online. [Duh.]
- 59% of Canadian TV viewers aged 18+ say they discover new TV content through recommendations from friends. [Witness the Rise of Social Media.]
- It’s the X, Y and Z generations (the 18 to 49-year-olds) that not surprisingly rely on their friends for discovery, whereas boomers rely more on TV and radio commercials. [True, but keep in mind the oldest Gen-X’ers are 56 now and the youngest Gen-Z’ers are not yet teenagers.]
- Being a viewer, or a consumer of content, is much more multifaceted than sitting back and having content just ‘wash’ over you. The state of ‘audience-ness’ is now dynamic, participatory, cross-channel, and both synchronous (in real time) and asynchronous. [Welcome to the Matrix.]
My take: Word-of-mouth still rules! Only now, you might ‘hear’ it online first — and your friend might live on another continent rather than around the corner.