UAE Chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA) hosts media and technology usage survey seminar.
Even as global families today seem addicted to technology and new media to help them make the right shopping decisions, the use of a variety of traditional media, like television and magazines, is now potentially stronger than ever in influencing the 40% of shoppers who remain, up to the last minute, in a state of indecision, revealed Mike Hess, well-known author on media behavior and the director of Global Research and Community Insights at OMD Worldwide.
Addressing a seminar on the impact of the internet on families, held at the Dusit Hotel hosted and organized by the UAE Chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA), Hess argued that marketers had an opportunity to affect purchasing decisions with brand messaging even after consumers made up their mind about where to buy. Hess used excerpts from his study titled “It’s a Family Affair: the Media Evolution of Global Families in a Digital Age,” to illustrate the influence of technology and media on the purchasing habits of families as a unit.
“Technology and media are essential to planning, researching and acting on many of family life’s important priorities, and that multi-tasking significantly extends the average day’s activities beyond 24 hours,” stated Hess.
“Sixty-three percent of consumers gather information when they first begin researching a purchase, 57% when they are narrowing down their options, 42% when they are deciding where to buy, and 51% when making their final decisions. At each stage, it is the internet that they turn to for gathering information and it is used more than any other resource,” he added.
The internet also serves as a site for communal shopping, in the sense that it offers consumers access to a vast community of shoppers, who share knowledge, shopping tools, product reviews and even coupons to help others make purchase decisions, Hess pointed out.
Elaborating further on the changed shopping habits, Hess disclosed that 25% of people have posted reviews of products or services on-line, providing a reliable source of information to other shoppers. “Mobile and camera phones, email, text messaging and other digital tools have contributed to the emergence of a shopping community whose members influence each other in their purchasing decisions,” he added.
Although consumers still prefer to go and shop in the physical market place, Hess said, in many markets in the west the rising cost of gas and related products may encourage more on-line buying and subsequently more on-line information sharing. “The conclusion that we could draw from these pointers is that the profusion of information will broaden, rather than narrow, consumers’ choices by the time they get to a store to make a purchase. And this makes the role of advertising - ‘just in time advertising’ - and the buying cues in the in-store environment all the more important,” he concluded.
About the IAA UAE Chapter
The UAE Chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA) is the world’s largest chapter comprising 270 members. The IAA is the world’s only business association for individuals involved with the advertising, marketing and communications industry. It provides a forum to champion the freedom of responsible advertising, global exchange of knowledge, share best practices and experience, and to raise the standards of professional development through training. With over 4,000 global members - 56 chapters in 95 countries - it’s a recognized force in the communications industry. Membership is open to individuals and companies. The UAE Chapter of the IAA board members consists of: Sami Raffoul, President; Lance De Masi, Vice President; Faris Abouhamad, Secretary General; Ghassan Harfouche, Treasurer and members: Barry Gray, Elie Khoury, Eric Hanna, Kamal Demachkie, Lars Nielsen, Marwan Kai, Mohamed Al Mulla, Nassib Boueri and Rajeev Khanna.
To find out more about the IAA UAE Chapter visit www.iaauae.org
