More than 87 million Chinese people watched the final between France and Croatia live. The 64 games attracted 440 million TV audiences, accounting for 34.15% of all Chinese TV audiences. 

The decline of live TV watching behavior has been a long-lasting trend in China. The previous FIFA World Cup was held in Brazil in 2014 summer. During the first half of that year, on average every Chinese TV audience would watch 160 minutes of TV every day.

Fast forward four years – in the first half of 2018, the number has further lost more than half an hour to 128 minutes. The challenge brought by digital video platforms has clearly squeezed people’s time in front of TV screens.

However, the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 was a different story. The favorable time difference – only five hours behind Beijing Time – enabled many games to be broadcast live during prime time in China, such as 8 pm, 10 pm, or 11 pm. The matches successfully regrouped big crowds in front of TV sets in early summer nights.

The final between France and Croatia kicked off at 11 pm on July 15 (Sunday) and attracted more than 87 million Chinese TV audiences to watch it live. Each viewer watched an average of 82 minutes – it means most people watched the whole game.

The national TV rating for the two China Central TV Station channels (CCTV-1 and CCTV-5) was 4.34%, with a staggeringly high share of viewing at 47.35% — it means that from 11 pm till 1 am the next day, almost one in every two TV-watching Chinese was watching this game.

If the viewership for the closing ceremony and the award ceremony were included, the audience number would jump to 90.60 million TV watchers, 2.08 times that of 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

In retrospect, the 64 live games had accumulated 440 million audiences, accounting for 34.15% of all Chinese TV audiences. The average live watching rating was 1.77%, much higher than even the most popular TV drama or entertainment shows in China.

The group stage games in total attracted 400 million TV audiences. Every World Cup watching audience spent at least one hour every day to watch live games. The Argentina vs Iceland match (June 16, 9 pm, Saturday) attracted the biggest audience during group stage as 90.91 million people watched it through CCTV channels live.

Among all groups, the competitive level of Group C was among the lowest because France and Denmark were clearly much stronger teams than Australia and Peru. However, Group C games happened to have the best kick-off times among all groups: except for France vs Peru (11 pm, June 21, Thursday) and Peru vs Denmark (12 am, June 17, Sunday), the other games all began in prime time in China (6 pm, 8 pm, 10 pm and 10 pm). This advantage handed Group C the title of “most watched group” in China – 176 million Chinese TV audiences watched the games on CCTV channels.

In the sports TV industry, we have a term of “bumper year” – apparently this Russia World Cup has perfectly explained what a “bumper year” is.

CSM has a 15-year research project CSM Sports Barometer Survey, which tracks sports watching behavior and attitude of sports audiences in 28 major Chinese cities between the age of 15 and 54. Our 2017 data showed that 63.6% of them still considered TV screen as their best choice for watch live sports programmes.

This post was originally published on Kantar.com.

For the first time in history, digital ad spends surpassed TV in 2016 and accounted for half of total media budget according to “This Year, Next Year: China Media Forecasts” by GroupM. It also forecasted that the digital spend would be increased to 57.2% of the total ad spend in China in 2017, and TV commercials dropped by 5.2%.

As the penetration of smartphone keeps going up, Kantar Worldpanel believes that mobile as a medium will become the first choice to catch the consumers’ eyeballs very soon. CTR Advertiser Survey in 2017 also indicated that the mobile budget allocation increased dramatically from 7% in 2015 to 23% in 2017 thus narrowing the gap with TV rapidly.

If the advertisers did not invest in digital media, they would miss a full 13% of the consumers based on the case studies of Kantar Worldpanel from 2015 to 2017. But if they dropped TV altogether, they would have missed as much as 58% of the consumers.

Even for the brands targeting young consumers, halo effect can still be strong resulting from the multi-media investment. The advertisers can reach 75.3% of the young target audience (aged 20-40) by using pre-roll of online video, but they can cover 88.8% of the same target by using traditional TV, 13.5% higher than online video.

The starting point is connecting the consumers’ ad exposure across media with their total channel purchase behavior, then evaluate and quantify the sales impact from media investment, so that the advertisers can optimize the media mix based on the quality of sales conversion.

For example, if an advertiser has invested 10 million yuan for a campaign, Kantar Worldpanel can effectively quantify the brand sales benefited solely from its investment on top of baseline sales. After quantifying the brand sales uplift, Kantar Worldpanel can further differentiate the return on investment by different media type including TV and digital. Kantar Worldpanel then can conclude how the advertiser should optimize the media budget allocation according to different media efficiency level in driving sales. Furthermore, with the in-depth understanding of those consumers, we can bring consumer insights into the brand sales uplift analysis to understand which consumer groups were influenced more by the campaign.

The next questions can be what the optimal times of exposure for driving sales, whether program sponsorship works, what role social media should play, and so on. Please contact us for the answers.

The article was originally published on Kantar.com.

This article shows forecast statistics of the year 2017 through 2019 on China’s advertising market, online advertising market structure, online video ad market, mobile marketing market, and programmatic ad buying market

China online advertising market reached close to 300 billion yuan (US$43.5 billion) in 2016, accounting for 68% of China’s five major advertising media revenues while TV ads only accounted for one-quarter of total revenues in the advertising market.

China Online Advertising Market Structure

Total spending on e-commerce ads in China surpassed search engine ads in 2016 for the first time according to data from iResearch. News feed advertising will see increasing growth through 2019; and, it’s expected to account for over 22% of total online advertising revenues.

China’s mobile market is estimated to see over 41% growth rate to reach 231 billion yuan in 2017.

The growth of China’s programmatic ad buying market is also expected to be fast in 2017 at 42% and reach 43.8 billion yuan.

China search engine market overview Q1 2017 (Updated)

China’s online video market is expected to reach 36.8 billion yuan (US$5.76 billion) in 2015, representing an increase of 50.2% compared to the previous year according to iResearch.

The average daily time usage on digital media exceeded that on TV for the first time in 2014. And, the daily time spent on digital media per person exceeded 50% in 2015.

Chinese spend about 50.4% of their daily time on new media, 43.6% on TV, 3.1% on radio, and only 2.9% on printed products such as newspaper and magazine in 2015 estimated by iResearch.

The increasing digital media influences China’s advertising market to a large extent. Online advertising is predicted to reach 209.3 billion yuan (US$32.76 billion) this year, nearly twice compared to 117.3 billion yuan (US$18.36 billion) of TV advertising. Users relying on new digital media directly stimulates the rapid growth of China’s online video market.

The overall online video market is expected to reach 36.8 billion yuan this year, representing an increase of 50.2% compared to the previous year despite the growth rate is 30.2 percentage points lower than 2014.

Chinese people enjoy watching the variety shows that the effective browsing time of variety shows increases by 5% this year compared to 2014. Relying on the overwhelming advantages on variety shows and publicizing groups, Hunan TV is one of the hottest online video platforms.

More women watch video on Hunan TV than men. Over half of the users are of high education background. 55.4% users are aged from 19 years old to 30 years old.

Also read: China Online Gaming Market to Exceed $22 Billion in 2015

In May 2015, CTR, a Chinese reserach company, announced a new report on China advertising market, which focused on key industries and top advertising marketing companies.

In early 2015, advertisers had more confidence in their industries and companies compared with last year.

The total budget increase in 2015 came the lowest since 2009, and the reduction rate was 29%, which was the highest in recent 7 years. Companies had less expectation for the future market.

Most advertisers popularized products through multi-channel marketing and agreed that building a good brand image is essential for marketing. In 2015, it gradually became a trend for companies to buy direct advertisements from media, and invest more in digital marketing.

In 2015, TV, internet and end promotion would become major marketing tools. Second-tier and third-tier cities, east China, Central China and South China would be key marketing areas; the first-tier cities and northwestern China would cut marketing expenditures, according to CTR.

In recent 2 years, advertising tools increased, more advertisers would choose to use multimedia, especially mobile internet and events marketing.

Provincial TV sites would be first choices for most advertisers, while CCTV sites had less advertising than last year, digital TV advertising has been increasing for 3 successive years.

2015 would see a year of large input in social media, video and search engineer advertising, both in PC internet and mobile internet. New outdoor media, such as cinema advertising and bus advertising would attract more advertisers.

While investing in advertisements in internet terminal, it is always not easy to judge their effectiveness, advertisers must consider all concerned factors before making decisions. More and more advertisers tend to popularize products through several multimedia combination, and like to help build brand image through TV, outdoors and prints. They get a clear view towards each promotion channel, the interactivity of internet, low cost of the radio advertising, which helps them choose a better advertising channel.

Also read: China Online Advertising Market in Q1 2015

In TNS Connected Lif study, it found that one third (33%) in mainland China, 32% in Hong Kong, watch online video every day, on either PC or mobile devices:

The same study also found that 66% of people in mainland China and 75% in Hong Kong watch TV on a daily basis:

Almost half of people (48%) globally who watch TV in the evening simultaneously engage in other digital activities, such as using social media, checking their emails or shopping online.

Source: Connected Life study, TNS

Weibo Television Index beta version, jointly created by CCTV – Sofres Media and Weibo, has been released recently, providing insights of audiences’ reviews on television programs.

Following international standards, this index makes standardized statistical analysis on the amount of discussions on TV programs and user scale on Weibo, providing a more effective, systematic and standardized data support for TV programs’ communication, marketing and evaluation on Weibo, in order to create fame and  influence of television programs and user coverage of the “official” indicators and data on Weibo.

At the same time, the index will also enable program marketers and researchers gain full amount of analytical data of television influence on social media, in addition to the sample survey indicators of TV ratings, which  makes the assessment on program more effectively and improves ROI and dissemination.

Xiaojian Bing, the deputy general manager of CSM, said, “Weibo TV Index”, as the first stage product of the overall cooperation between CSM and Weibo, is a primarily presentation for TV program to realize its standardization of Weibo data.

With the continuous improvement of products, TV program and Weibo data will realize the uniqueness of the application and integration as well as tools’ unity, facilitating the active data adoption and application of television media, program operators and other organizations in overall design and operation of the program.

Integration of Social Big Data and Television Studies

Dong Wenjun, the operation director of Weibo, said that, with the acceleration of network integration as well as the development of social media, television programs has integrated with social media more in-depth. Currently, many television programs hope to have a comprehensive program evaluation system to promote multi-screen linkage propagation, and analyze the audiences insights.  The launch of Weibo television is expected to provide more references for TV programs.

Weibo Television Index is based on the discussion of television program on Weibo. It emphasizes on the influence and audience coverage. With large data computing and system optimization of keywords to calculate the page views, the quantity and frequency of mentions of the corresponding TV programs on Weibo. The in-depth analysis of the data will further shows what is hot and the characteristics of people who discuss such a TV program on Weibo..

In order to assess the influence of TV program on Weibo in a more comprehensive and accurate way, Weibo Television Index begins calculating the data of mention and reading on Weibo six hours before the TV show. With continuous computation for 24 hours, the algorithm not only ensures comprehensiveness of the data, but also prevents interference due to historical objectivity.

Weibo TV Index is classified into Daily Ranking and Weekly Ranking, representing a certain television program’s popularity on daily and weekly basis, providing each program with a corresponding index. The current release Weibo TV Index covers more than twenty domestic television programs with great concern. In the future, the assessment scope of the index will gradually be extended to TV plays, sports programs, etc, providing diversified program type with assessment data.

The First Social TV Effect Standardization Measurement

Foreign survey shows that about a quarter of the audience are talking about the TV programs that they are watching on social media. In the domestic market, according to CSM survey, in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, more than 50% of the audience choose to publish all relevant discussion on Weibo in 2013.

According to the plan, based on the Weibo TV Index, the two sides will conduct hotspot analysis on a regular basis and publish research findings and white paper with integration of data regularly.

Innovative ways to boost network linkage(network linkage means TV and internet service each other)

Facing the change of audience’s behavior of watching what kind of program, the television industry increasingly focuses on Weibo and other social media to expand their program’s influence. Weibo data show that, by January 2014, over 7,000 official TV related Weibo accounts get registered and certified.

China online video market achieved 12.81 billion Yuan(USD 2.08 billion) with 41.9% YoY increase. The market was expected to maintain a rapid growth and reach 36.6 billion Yuan (USD 5.97 billion) in 2017.

In the coming years, as the mobile client commercialization deepens, copyright contents (TV dramas, variety shows and sporting events) are be introduced continuously, and  user generation videos develop, online video market will keep a relative high growth, according to iResearch.

The advertising revenue accounted for 75% of total revenue in 2013, ranked the first. The proportion was predicted to rise slightly to 77.1% in 2017.

Advertising is, and will be in recent years, the main way to monetize traffic due to the typical media attribute of online video. For now, high-quality hot dramas and variety shows guaranteed the advertising revenue, and contents such as animation and sporting events helped to boost the advertising profitability. Most mobile online video revenue came from advertising, while the revenue proportion of non-advertising ways to monetize the traffic were increasing, as a consequence of growing traffic and deeper commercialization.

The monthly online video user coverage of PC webpage and PC client was 460 million and 340 million respectively in November 2013. The MoM growth of PC webpage user scale was 1.6%, lower than 6.7% of PC client. Generally, the user scale of online video on PC was steady, maintained a stable momentum.

By November 2013, the user scale of mobile video app reached 170 million, up 72.9% compared with December 2012, showing a rapid growth. By November 2013, the ratio of mobile video app user to PC online video user was 37.1%, increased 15.6 percentage points from 21.5% by December 2012.

During January to November 2013, TV dramas always took the most part of video effective length. The share fluctuated in small range but remained above 50%. The overall trend of  variety shows was upward, with the increase from 9.6% by January 2013 to 13.5% by November 2013. Generally speaking, the content structure of video effective length kept stable.

According to China SARFT, or State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, China TV open rate has dropped from 70% to 30% in 2013. The report showed that under the impact of PC, tablet and smartphone, TV open rate dropped from 70% three years ago to 30% in 2013. Senior became the majority of traditional TV audience, even for those who both watched TV and online videos, they preferred online videos more.

The loss of young watchers endangered TV advertising. Online advertising had been growing from 2007 to 2012, 3 out of 6 years with more than 120% growth rate, outperformed the growth of TV advertising.

Online video websites gradually earned more advertising over the years, its online advertising revenue was 3.14 billion yuan (USD 512 million), it reached 9.25 billion yuan (USD 1.51 billion) in 2012.

Although the number of online video users could not compete with TV users, it has high penetration rate in high education and high income young people. And in 1980s, official media had 80% say in reporting; in 2012, non-official media gained 75% say in 20 hot online events.

According to Enfodesk, in Q3 2013, China online video advertising revenue reached 3.25 billion yuan (USD 530 million), 13% more than Q2 2013 and 23.1% more than last year.

In Q3, online video websites played many TV series, talent shows and self-made drama, therefore average watching time and frequency all increased handsomely which in return drove the growth of advertising. In the meantime, mobile video advertising business value attracted more attention. Youku and iQiyi increased advertising revenue by prolonging pre-roll ads.

ZDC launched a report on China TV and online videos study in 2013 recently, by analyzing 904 effective questionnaires from ZOL website.

Key Findings were:

• Nearly half of respondents didn’t watch TV.
• Most respondents liked to watch TV in the evening.
• 60% respondents said their TV watching time was 1-2 hours.
• News, movies and entertainment programs were the favorite TV programs.
• More than 75% respondents chose watch online videos.
• College students loved watching online videos most.
• Respondents who were between age 18-29 loved watching online videos most.
• Main reason for watching TV was large screen.
• Main reason for not watching TV was too much ads.
• Main reason for watching online videos was having control for when to watch.
• Main reason for not watching online videos was bad internet connect and watching experience.

When asked about “Do you still watch TV?”, 45.4% respondents said they didn’t watch TV any more; 23.2% said they watched TV everyday and 20.8% said they watched TV frequently.

86.2% respondents said they watched TV in the evening, few people watched at other time.

As for average TV watching time, 56.7% said they spent 1-2 hours daily.

News, moives and entertainment programs were the favorite TV program types. 71.3% would watch news on TV, 55.1% watched movies on TV and 40.5% watched entertainment programs.

When asking about choice between TV and online videos, 76.3% respondents chose online videos.

Respondents with different education background all chose online videos over TV, during which college students had the highest percentage of watching online videos.

As for respondents in different ages, they all preferred online videos. Age between 18-29 had the highest percentage of watching online videos, almost 80%.

68.2% chose TV because TV has large screen. Besides, having freedom to choose different programs and TV is suitable for the whole family watching together were also the main reasons.

34.8% said the main reason for not watching TV was because of too much ads.

79.4% thought they could have control for when to watch videos on internet, this was the top reason for choosing online videos. 72.8% were interested in searching for programs they liked on internet.

The top reason for not watching online videos was because of bad internet connect and watching experience.

Demographics of respondents

iQiyi, a video provider now owned by Baidu, jointly announced with China’s biggest TV manufacturer TCL to launch 48 inch TV+, also known as internet TV.

According to iResearch, iQiyi and PPS (Baidu acquired PPS this May) monthly users reached 358 million, is the biggest video platform in China.

Data showed that TCL has 25.2% market share by volume in 2012, the largest TV manufacturers in China.

iQiyi Continues Its Expansion in Internet TV Market

iQiyi CEO Gong Yu said, video watchers are transferring from PC, mobile devices to TV, traditional TV manufacturers are facing the challenge of living room transition. iQiyi and TCL combined their advantages, aiming at providing better user experience. TV+ is the first product of the cooperation.

China has about 400 million people who were born at 80s and 90s, who have strong need for videos; and it has not been satisfied yet, said by Li Dongsheng, CEO of TCL.

This time, iQiyi and TCL are going to launch two versions, one is called Zunjue. Zunjue’s priced at 4,567 yuan (USD 741). The first batch of Zunjue TV+ sold on Jingdong will have a 1357 yuan bonus(USD 220), which means first people who buy Zunjue TV+ will only have to pay 3210 yuan(USD 521). At the same time, iQiyi are offering bonus for its members, when they buy Zunjue on Jingdong, they will get an extra 500 yuan (USD 81) rebate.

The other version is called Classic, its price is 2,999 yuan (USD 486), and will be on market in November 2013. Compared to Zunjue, Classic will lower its hardware configuration, content services and accessories. Hardware configuration will follow the market standards. In content services, it will decrease exclusive services. Accessories are standards. Classic is to better meet affordable family needs.

Statistic shows that from January to July in 2013, average 48 inch TV price is 5,274 yuan (USD 855). TV+ has better hardware configuration, the actual price would reach 8073 yuan (USD 1309). TV+ has highest cost-effective in internet TV market.

How to Compete With Other Internet TV Manufacturers?

iQiyi and TCL’s TV+ is based on consumer experience, which is quite different from other internet TV manufacturers. They designed a real internet TV which would be loved by consumers. Gong said they were not afraid price war with others at all, because previous products were not good at consumer experience.

TCL first gave out 1,000 TV+ to different groups, including opinion leaders, normal consumers and its own staff to test. And TCL recorded all the feedback from test consumers. Besides, no other internet TV enterprises could reach 3000G cloud bandwidth.

iQiyi and TCL both expressed the plan to keep updating TV+, to make it a perfect internet TV product.

China online ad market in Q2, from iResearch data, reached 23.26 billion yuan (USD 3.8 billion), growing 17.4% compared to Q1 and YoY growth of 27.4%. China online ad market is entering to a steady growth stage.

In Q2, search, video, news and navigation monthly usage increased. NetEase, Taobao and eTao had more than 10% QoQ growth, Sina, Sohu and iFeng had more than 7% QoQ growth.

Search engine ads kept growing in Q2 with 36.4% online ad market share. Vertical search ads and brand banner ads dropped slightly compared to Q1, with 22.4% and 21.2% share. Video ads grow steadily with 6.7% share.

Baidu, Google and Sogou promote the grow of search engine ads, market new player Qihoo’s 360 will further push it. Vertical search ads is due to the fast growth of Taobao search, online shopping increase brings up vertical search ads. High quality video content, such as movies, TV dramas and shows boost video ads growth.

In China top 10 online ad market companies, Baidu was still the leader with 7.56 billion yuan in revenue. Taobao came to the second with 5.61 billion yuan. Taobao, Qihoo’s 360 and Sohu had grown by more than 40%.

Qihoo’s 360 main revenue comes from navigation, growing steadily. Qihoo’s search ads conversion keeps increasing. Taobao has lots of small business which provide growing need for advertisement.Sogou search engine and its video contributed to its revenue growth.

According to market conditions of various media, the advertising growth in the first quarter of 2013 was mainly due to the good performance of TV. Spend in many traditional media was declining with magazines bearing the biggest drop. However, TV had a slight increase in this quarter.

Provincial satellite TV stations had a growth rate of almost 30%, the largest increase among all levels of TV channels.

Benefiting from the rapid development of e-commerce, China online ads market reached 14.53 billion yuan (USD2.33 billion) in Q3 2012, which is building its historical high.

Moreover, the overall revenue of China online ads market had surpassed that of newspaper, becoming the second most important media by Q2 2012. And it is catching up with the revenue of TV ads. It seems that the value of online advertising had been generally recognized and admitted by advertisers and they tended to invest more into this area.

Rapid Growth of China AdSense

AdSence, video ads, online community ads and portal ads are encroaching the market share of search engine ads. Among them, AdSense had been growing fastest, reaching 2.01 billion yuan (USD320 million) in Q3 2012.

Judging from the traffic, AdSense surpassed search engine ads for the very first time. It is estimated that AdSense will become more and more important by providing multifunctional services while search engine ads will slow down the footsteps.

Following the global trend of smart TVs’ popularity, 40% of the TVs that shipped in China in Q2 were web-enabled. According to NPD’s October 2012 DisplaySearch “Quarterly Smart TV Shipment and Forecast Report”, “this was an increase from 26% of televisions shipped in Q2 2011”.

This increase is quite reasonable. Firstly, most TV users are spoiled netizens and are very tired of TV shows’ schedule. Secondly, online content are ready to meet the need of smart TV users. It seems that UGC could be transferred from online videos to TV series.

Nielsen’s cross-media measurement panel in Shanghai has found that half of Shanghai households regularly engage in multi-screen media consumption while watching TV:

Digital campaigns are most effective when combined with other advertising channels like TV; TV gets increasingly costly and if it’s not something you can afford, using social media wisely can potentially boost your ad performance with much lower cost.

Starcom MediaVest Group’s recently conducted a study of users ages 13 to 45 in China and found that internet users aged 19 to 30 spent almost twice as much time online as watching TV.

Watching videos on computers is the most popular, which accounted for the most time spent by Chinese users except for those in Tier 1 cities (Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou) where mobile devices are the most popular platform for video watching.

Clearly from this Starcom study, China internet users spend more time watching video on their mobile devices and computers than on TV. And, as advertising in TV dramas is banned in China, online video advertising and marketing presents a big opportunity.