Streaming TV Ads Beat Mobile Ads For Informing Holiday Purchases

• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, 6 hours ago

More consumers now find streaming ads, rather than mobile ads, most helpful in informing holiday purchases, according to a new survey by LG Ads.

In this year’s holiday shopper study, streaming ads were chosen by 39% of respondents — up 22 percentage points from last year’s 17%. That put streaming ads ahead of mobile ads, which last year led with 38%, but this year declined by 7 points, to just 28% (chart above).

Despite lingering concerns about inflation, three quarters (76%) said that they plan to spend the same or more on holiday purchases compared to last year, 30% say they’ll begin shopping in October or earlier, and 86% report doing some holiday shopping online while watching TV.

Mobile phone remains the top device used for holiday purchases (73%), followed by laptop/desktop (66%) and tablets (34%), but 20%, or one in five, report buying via smart TV.

Streaming ranks as the top medium for watching holiday content, with 54% saying they use it for this purpose, compared with 35% for broadcast/cable/satellite and 12% using purchased media.

Consumers ranked deals as their No. 1 priority when it comes to holiday TV shopping ads, followed by “personalized, relevant ads” and “ads that streamline direct buying,” such as ones that include QR codes.

More than half (53%) said they remember holiday shopping ads on streaming TV, and nearly 40% said they searched online or visited a website after seeing a connected TV ad.

Well over half (57%) of viewers report feeling favorably toward brands that advertise on free, ad-supported streaming services/FASTs. (LG offers its own FAST channels service.)

A large majority of consumers are planning to take advantage of online Black Friday (79%) and Cyber Monday (77%) deals, but 85% said they’re likely to shop for additional deals after the holiday season, and 92% are likely to use a gift card they received during the holiday.

Asked in the current survey about which genres of holiday content they watch, they cited “classics” (75%), comedy (60%), kids/family content (52%), music specials (39%), action (31%) and “so bad it’s good” (26%).

Looking at last year’s most popular holiday fare, based on cumulative watch time as shown by LG Ads’ ACR data, “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” was No. 1.

LG surveyed an online panel of 800-plus U.S. consumers, balanced to the census, in early August 2023 on holiday TV content and shopping habits.