Soaring levels of engagement on music sites spell good news for advertisers

11 Mar 2008

Recent internet usage trends show content driven sites account for an increasing share of time online, compared with search, communications and commerce focused websites. High quality content, particularly music/entertainment content, is resulting in users spending more time online per session and increasingly, choosing the internet over traditional entertainment mediums such as TV.

This is good news for advertisers. Not only does a higher time online allow greater impact and frequency of traditional online display ads, research shows that a quality site environment also increases the effectiveness of more complex rich media ads, as well as offering more opportunity for integration.
There is enormous potential within the online music category to create a deeply engaging environment and reap the benefits of above average session durations. mcm entertainment’s market leading music websites, www.take40.com and www.thehothits.com have seen consistently high average session duration (ASD) results; for the past 3 months both sites have held a clear advantage over their competition, according to Nielsen’s Market Intelligence report.

For the month of February, the youth and young adult targeted thehothits.com delivered an impressive 11 minutes and 12 seconds average session duration, compared with an average of around 3 minutes 50 seconds on Ninemsn’s ‘The Fix’ entertainment portal.

According to Adam Leys, General Manager of Digital Media at mcm entertainment, the key to developing engaging content is flexibility and superior quality. “A big reason our sites achieve such a great Average Session Duration is because we let our users consume music in the way that suits them. Our research has told us one thing very clearly - not everyone enjoys music in the same way. Our users can choose from a pre-programmed playlist of audio or video tracks, they can create their own playlists or they can select individual tracks in an ‘a la carte’ fashion.”

Both take40.com and thehothits.com have recently been upgraded with a ‘Super’ setting which caters to users with a fast broadband connection to provide video quality not readily available online. Near DVD-quality video and audio streaming now has the potential to make the internet a significant competitor to traditional TV.

It’s online environments such as these, where users are spending more than 10 minutes at a time interacting with a single site, that the newest forms of online advertising have the greatest impact. A study recently conducted by the Online Publishers Association in the US1, investigated the importance of site environment in determining video advertising success. It found that consumers on rich media sites were far more likely to interact with a video ad than those on portal (eg: Yahoo.com.au, Ninemsn.com.au) or user-generated sites – like YouTube. Recent findings in Australia by digital marketing experts, Double Click2, show video ads attract a much higher level of user interaction than static display ads. The combination of quality video ads within an engaging environment is arguably the most effective method of online advertising.

Simon Joyce, National Sales Director at mcm says “The advertising model on take40.com and thehothits.com encourages maximum impact from these rich media ads. With artist and genre targeting, the highest resolution audio and video creative and association with premium up-to-the-minute music content the site’s absolute focus on quality is what sets it apart”.

Both sites offer advertisers the chance to integrate their advertising message into the site content (e.g. site sponsorship) and take advantage of a truly engaged audience. In addition, this audience is typically less resistant to advertising messages than general internet users; a study into digital entertainment and media conducted by IBM3 found that 68% of survey respondents would be prepared to watch or accept advertising around quality, free content.
Joyce says the mcm model is a win/win for both consumers and advertisers. “mcm remains committed to providing the highest quality online music experience for consumers and in turn, delivering the best value online advertising solutions for our clients”.

1. Online Publisher’s Association, NY, June 2007
2. Double Click, Video Ad Benchmarks ”Average Campaign Performance Metrics”, February 2007
3. Australian Consumer Research Digital Media & Entertainment”, IBM Institute for Business Value, May 2007


For further information:
Adam Hodge
Marketing Manager, mcm entertainment
T: 02 8333 8816
M: 0439 544 067
ahodge@mcmentertainment.com

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