Since 2000, the number of Americans with Internet access has more than doubled from 132.2 million to 274 million, according to Nielsen and NM Incite’s U.S. Digital Consumer Report. As such, it should be no surprise that online content is increasingly part of Americans’ entertainment fare. At the end of 2011, roughly one‐third of consumers streamed long‐form content such as a movie or TV show from the Internet through a paid subscription service like Netflix or Hulu‐Plus.

The In‐Home Streaming Experience: With 12 million unique video consumers streaming from Hulu and 6.2 million from Netflix from home computers in October 2011, these brands are two of the largest players in the online streaming of TV and movie content.

So, who’s watching on Netflix and Hulu on home computers?

Age: Interestingly, though 31 percent of Hulu’s audience falls into the 18‐34 age range, more than a third of users are over the age of 50. Netflix skews slightly younger, with 40 percent of users in the 18‐34 age range and 17 percent over 50.

Gender: Women make up the majority of users for both Netflix and Hulu—57 percent and 59 percent, respectively—and an even bigger share of time spent. They account for 64 percent of total time spent watching video content on Netflix and Hulu. This is particularly noteworthy, as women stream less online video overall than men, as noted in the recent Nielsen Cross‐Platform Report.

Race & Ethnicity: Both services have an audience that is more than three‐quarters white, with relatively even audience percentages for African‐Americans and Asians. Hispanics are more likely to watch video on Netflix than Hulu—making up 16 percent of Netflix’s audience compared to 11 percent for Hulu.

via Detailing the Digital Revolution: Social, Streaming and More | Nielsen Wire.

Click the link beneath the graphic to download full size.

Infographic: Mobile, Internet & TV usage by Ethnicity

In honor of Black History Month, Ad Age caught up with anumber of marketing and advertising executives for a Q&A. The fourth in the series is Kheri Holland Tillman, VP-trade marketing and sales strategy, Heineken USA.

AA: How did you get into the business?

Ms. Tillman: I’ve been at Heineken for four-and-a-half years. I started in the marketing field two years out of college. I was at Dow Jones, at The Wall Street Journal, and worked on the interactive edition of The Wall Street Journal before it launched. And then I went back to business school and got my MBA from Kellogg. I got my M.B.A in business management and marketing and then … I started working at Kraft Foods.

AA: Where are you from?

Ms. Tillman: I was born in Amsterdam, which is always a funny thing because I was born in Amsterdam, my maiden name is Holland and I grew up in White Plains, [New York]. And here I am at Heineken, which is a Dutch company whose headquarters in the U.S. is in White Plains. I walked into my interview saying I was destined to work here. They thought I was crazy — and then realized I wasn’t kidding.

AA: Do you have a mentor?

Ms. Tillman: One person who stands out is Ann Fudge, who after being at Kraft … went on to be the president at Y&R. And she’s someone who has been a mentor to me over the past years.

AA: She is an African-America woman, like you. Was that one reason you looked up to her?

Ms. Tillman: Absolutely, to be able to see an African-American female, especially, excel in business and excel in advertising was something that you don’t see that often. … You don’t see it enough.

AA: Is marketing segmentation necessary and does Heineken specifically target African-American beer drinkers?

Ms. Tillman: Yes, marketing segmentation is necessary, but it’s not as simple as segmentation by African American, Hispanic and white. It needs to go much deeper. … It needs to be the psychographics along with the demographics combined because not all individuals act the same across an ethnic group. You can’t really successfully lump one group together necessarily, then correctly hit that target specifically. So you have to make sure that you’re breaking it down by more than just an ethnic group.

We need to make sure we understand African-Americans play an important role within the Heineken organization and that we are doing the right things to hit that target. Sometimes that doesn’t necessarily mean doing something different than you may do to general market.

AA: Do you have any examples of putting that into practice?

Ms. Tillman: Our most recent television campaign. … We did find that the television was relevant across ethnic groups. … Then there are other things we tend to do more targeted, like local marketing. We had Heineken Red Star Soul a few years ago, which was really leveraging Heineken’s focus against the music platform but doing it in a way that was relevant specifically for the African-American community.

AA: Do you do more targeted marketing to Hispanics compared with African-Americans?

Ms. Tillman: I’m not sure if it’s more, [but] the one thing we have to take into consideration is there is a language piece that comes in when targeting our Hispanic consumers. There is a level of complexity in understanding where English language is the right mode of communication or using Spanish language to reach Hispanics is the right mode. And then also there are nuances within that same Spanish language. You have the dialect from different places . . . so that adds a layer of complexity.

AA: Have you taken people under your wing?

Ms. Tillman: Absolutely. There’s a responsibility that I feel to ensure that I leverage the experience that I have and where I’ve been able to get to help others in ways that I can. I’m also a mom of three with a full-time job so I’m doing a whole lot. … But it is important. Right now I’m actually down in Orlando at Black Enterprise. They have a Women of Power Summit that they do every year and I’m here to speak, so speaking is one of the things I can absolutely do that can reach out. … [But] it’s not always about color. I think its also about being in business [and] being female. And it’s about just having seniority and being able to see there is someone you can help to ensure they are learning and growing the way they can.

via Heinekens Kheri Holland Tillman Talks Targeting | The Big Tent – Advertising Age.

It’s no secret that 18-34 year-olds continue to redefine media consumption; new Nielsen research explains why. Along with NM Incite, Nielsen found this demo — christened  “Generation C” — is taking their personal connections to new levels, devices, and experiences.

The latest U.S. Census reports that consumers 18-34 make up 23% of the U.S. population, yet they represent a particularly large portion of consumers watching online video — 27% — visiting social networking/blog sites — 27% — owning tablets — 33% — and using a smartphone — 39%.

With an array of online video content to choose from, consumers increased their monthly online video time in the third quarter of 2011 by 7% from the same period last year.

During October 2011, YouTube was the top destination for online video content, accounting for nearly half — 45% — of Americans’ total streaming time, while social networks/blogs garnered the most Internet time overall.

The majority of mobile phone time was consumed by app usage with social networking apps — accounting for the nearly 6% of mobile time.

Consumers are increasingly multitasking across various screens. 57% of smartphone and tablet owners checked email while watching a TV program — their top activity — while 44% visited a social networking site.

Advertisers worried consumers might miss their message should note that 19% of smartphone and tablet owners searched for product information, and 16% looked up coupons or deals while the television was on.

While nearly all social media users — 97% — access social networking sites from their computers, NM Incite, a Nielsen McKinsey company, found that females are more likely than men to read social media content from their eReaders, while men are more likely than women to access their social content from an Internet-enabled TV or gaming console.

Also of note, by the end of 2011, NM Incite tracked over 181 million blogs around the world — up from 36 million in 2006.

Three of the top 10 social networks in the U.S. during October of 2011 were true blogs — Blogger, WordPress.com and Tumblr — with a combined 80 million unique visitors. Among the top social networks, Tumblr has shown the strongest growth in visitors, more than doubling its audience from last year.

Mobile, meanwhile, is transforming into a powerful commerce tool, facilitating consumer transactions and access to real-time information and deals. 29% of smartphone owners use their phone for shopping-related activities and more than half of mobile users are repeat visitors to daily deal sites.

The Groupon app is the 10th most popular app on the iOS platform and ranks 22nd on Android devices.

Finally, Nielsen warns that home entertainment landscape is becoming increasingly complex as consumers are presented with a greater variety of ways to consume content, especially with the addition of digital streaming and movie downloads via the Web.

via MediaPost Publications Key 18-34 Demo Major Mobile, Online Video Users 02/24/2012.

Hispanic-focused media programming is muy caliente.

Cable operator Comcast yesterday agreed to carry two new Hispanic-run TV cable channels, joining a growing march of media heavyweights targeting not just the $1.2 billion in advertising spent on Spanish network TV but on growing their slice of the $60 billion now spent with mainstream TV.

Earlier this month, market leader Univision tied up with Disney-ABC to launch an English language 24-hour news channel.

In January, News Corp. said it would launch Spanish language MundoFox, a new broadcast network in the fall.

And that’s on top of several Hispanic spin-offs that currently exist, ranging from MTV’s Tr3s to ESPN Deportes.

Brad Adgate, senior vice president and research chief at Horizon Media, notes, “The latest Census says one out of every six people is Hispanic. You can’t ignore it. We are already seeing the trend of the white minority in some states.”

SNL Kagan estimates that Univision generated $825 million in ad revenue in 2011 while NBCUniversal’s Telemundo raked in $329 million — not including retransmission fees, which are an additional source of revenue.

Hispanics number 50 million, or 16.3 percent of the nation’s population, but the Census Bureau says that by 2040, Hispanics will make up 50 percent. Hispanic spending power is expected to grow to more than $1.5 trillion by 2015, according to the University of Georgia’s Selig Center, or 15 percent of America’s total buying power.

Trend lines already make for shocking ratings reports. On Friday evenings, Univision ranks behind only Fox in the advertiser-craved 18-49 year old demographic, with a 1.6 rating. The network is making inroads on other nights, too, and beats NBC on Thursdays this TV season with a 1.7 average rating, or 2.2 million viewers. NBC has an average rating of 1.6. Run by former NBCUniversal TV President Randy Falco, Univision crows that it is beating NBC on one out of every two nights this season in primetime.

“Spy Kids” director Robert Rodriguez is fronting one of the new Comcast-backed channels. Called El Rey, it is scheduled to launch in January 2014. Rodriguez said Madison Avenue has been welcoming of the idea, since it targets young, second-generation viewers who are influenced equally by American and Latino culture. Rodriguez underscored the extent to which media companies want to get into the game. “Comcast set [subscription fees] at a good rate so we don’t have to accept a lot less from everyone else,” he said, while declining to discuss the distribution fees guaranteed by Comcast. The cable company was ordered by the Federal Communications Commission to increase its commitment to multicultural programming as part of its deal to buy NBCUniversal. Negotiations will begin with other providers, said Rodriguez. “They gave us a leg up to help us get subscription fees,” he added.

Comcast’s other Hispanic-themed channel is BabyFirst Americas.

Source: New York Post

It’s about time!  This is a very big deal -

Facebook has added a Hispanic targeting option to its self-service ad-buying platform. Marketers whocreate an ad and then select the broad category targeting option – as opposed to precise interest levels – will see an “Ethnic” tab. Currently the only subset option is “Hispanic,” which can be added to the targeting mix with a click on its check box.
The feature reveals that Facebook has 7.7 million Hispanic users 18 and above in the U.S., while there are 8.4 million when including all ages. (According to the 2010 Census, there were 50.5 million Hispanics in the United States, making up 16.3 percent of the total population.)

Menlo Park, CA-based Facebook told ClickZ in an email that the feature went live sometime during the last half of 2011, but didn’t disclose a more precise timeline. Gustavo Rezzetti is chief strategy and engagement officer at Grupos Gallegos and a ClickZ columnist who focuses on Latino marketing. Razetti said his team first noticed the Hispanic targeting feature on Facebook last month.

“We are not aware of how Facebook is identifying who is Hispanic,” Razetti said. “If it’s based on the language of the Facebook app only, that could be misleading.”

Like Rezzetti, Captura Group founder Lee Vann said he first heard about the new targeting feature last month, and he figures it was likely implemented sometime during the last three months of 2011. Vann’s Hispanic-focused online marketing services company has worked with media buyer MindShare to purchase direct Facebook ads (rather than self-service ones) zeroing in on American Hispanics. The efforts were for brands such as Unilever and Allstate, he said.

For those ads purchases, Vann said, Facebook’s direct sales team created a “Hispanic overlay” to help big brands better target the demographic. Now, he said, it appears that same overlay is being made available to Facebook’s Marketplace Ads/self-service customers.

Vann welcomed the development, but advised marketers to also include language targeting in their efforts for optimal results. “A lot of Hispanics, of course, use English on Facebook,” he said.

Facebook’s self-service advertisers, Vann explained, have taken aim at Hispanics in the past by targeting Zip code and designated market areas (DMAs) with a high concentration of Latino people. Another example is selecting interest level targets, such as people who have liked the Facebook pages of Hispanic-focused brands such as Univision, Telemundo, and CNN en Español.

Vann has devoted more than a decade of his online marketing career to the Hispanic niche. On the new broad category feature, he said, “This is definitely an improvement. But we are not all the way there.”

This week, the Hispanic Leadership Network tested the targeting tool to protest a controversial tweet made by President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign manager. The ads were targeted to independent and conservative Hispanic voters in states with large Hispanic populations – Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and New Mexico.

via Facebook’s Self-Serve Ads Can Now Target Hispanics | ClickZ.