4.4 hours per day! That’s how long the average 16-24 year olds spends online every day according to comScore’s latest results, with 63% of their total time online spent on mobile. To add context, that’s 11% more time online per day across all devices than someone aged 45+ and a whopping 58% more time online on mobile.
Whilst young millennials are not the current audience businesses are scrambling to target, they are undoubtedly the future one. As they establish their careers and develop their personal life, by the time an average millennial is reluctantly ready to leave their 30’s they would have already gone through countless life milestones. From moving out of their parents’ home at 24 years old to getting married at 36 – each event is a new experience and each offers the opportunity to engage with them.
With digital now directing our media time and reshaping the way we all live our lives, it must become the dominant channel we use to engage, reach and sell to younger millennials and for the next generation that follows.
Want proof? Then look no further than the IPA’s TouchPoints study. According to the IPA, young millennials are now spending almost twice as much time online versus three years ago, whilst the average time spent watching TV has declined by a quarter.
This is not to say TV is an irrelevant channel for this audience. Live TV still provides an important channel for reaching all groups at prime time; but with the continued growth of online and with digital impacting traditional media, the value of non-digital channels will surely become less and less important.
With digital being so prevalent in the daily routine of young millennials, it has now become the third most popular activity they do during the day behind being awake and sleeping, coming at the expense of relaxing and socialising. According to the IPA, 16-24’s have seen a sharp decline in the amount of time spent doing these leisurely activities since 2015, whilst the time spent online has exploded.
With 48% of commercial media time now spent online, the channel is now firmly the prime vehicle for targeting young millennials and the mobile is fast becoming the gateway to access digital.
With so many life events fast approaching young millennials, wouldn’t it be great if we could harness big data to effectively target the right consumer, with the right product, at the right time of their life?
Source: comScore (Jan-16) / TGI (Oct-14 to Sep-15) / IPA TouchPoints (2015)
