Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Nielsen released its first batch of viewership data about Netflix.

The never-before-publicly-shared data shows that the first episode of Stranger Things 2 drew a bigger audience than the Season 8 premiere of The Walking Dead, cable TV’s most-watched show a week earlier.

According to Nielsen’s SVOD Content Ratings, 15.8 million U.S. viewers watched the first episode of Stranger Things 2 over the first three days, including a whopping 11 million people in the 18-49 demo.

That puts it just above the live-plus-3 numbers for The Walking Dead Season 8 premiere on Oct. 22, which drew 15 million total viewers and 8.8 million in the demo....

For many Americans, smartphones are as much a necessity in their daily lives as the air they breathe and the food they eat. These devices are constant companions, helping us take care of just about everything we need to do each day—watching our favorite shows and movies, keeping up with our friends, learning new languages and managing our finances.

And spending money is no exception!

In addition to growing as a new purchase channel, mobile commerce offers a plethora of opportunities for marketers and advertisers looking to reach their desired consumers. According to Nielsen’s fourth-quarter 2015 Mobile Wallet Report, 37% of respondents said their purchases start with mobile shopping more than one-quarter to half of the time. However, the competition is fierce, and in order to maximize these opportunities, marketers must know the best ways to position their products and communicate with appropriate audiences.

Consumers handle a lot of their shopping activities on their mobile devices, and everyone knows that savvy consumers do their due diligence before handing over their cash. In fact, 72% of smartphone shoppers research an item before purchasing it, 70% check the price of an item and 60% use a store locator to find a store where they can buy their desired product of choice....

In the U.K. study in 2015, nearly two-thirds of children aged 0-17s read (or were read to) for pleasure on a weekly basis, with two in five doing so daily, and nearly all doing so at least sometimes. However, the proportion of kids 0-17 reading weekly had fallen by 1% point year-over-year since 2014 and was 7% points lower than in 2012. The decrease was seen among girls as well as boys and was most marked among kids aged 3-10, dropping the most for boys aged 8-10. 

For the first time in 2016, the annual U.S. survey also looked at the proportion of children reading (or being read to) for pleasure. On a daily basis, just over half of those aged 0-12 and only one in five teens were doing so, but an encouraging 82% of children read on a weekly basis and nearly half of all teens. In fact, on a weekly basis, reading was the third most popular activity for 0-12 year olds (with watching TV at number one). For teens, reading as a leisure activity was in 11th place, well behind such activities as social networking, watching YouTube, watching TV, playing games on smartphones/tablets and playing games online or on a console.

Despite the ubiquity of digital reading devices (over 80% of American children have access to a smartphone and/or computer in their household, and over half have access to a tablet device), only around one in five 0-17 year olds in the U.S. are currently using smartphones for e-reading, with a third of 0-12s and two in five teens e-reading on tablets. The U.K. saw similar levels of e-reading in 2015, with 14% of 0-17s using a smartphone and 31% using a tablet—despite much higher proportions (79%) having tablet access in the U.K. than in the U.S....