Monday, 25 October 2010

Demand & excitement for 3D in the living room - 3D TV / 3D Blu-ray

3D, 3D, 3D, everything seems to be going 3D nowadays. We're all familiar with 3D in the cinema, but the big tech push at the moment is to get 3D into our living rooms and on the devices we carry around with us.



But is there are any demand for it?

That's a question we ask ourselves at Harris Interactive. We've been asking about awareness, familiarity, buzz and excitement about 3D consumer products and services in August and September 2010. Using the Harris Poll, we interview over 1,000 consumers in Great Britain, nationally representative, aged between 16-64 each month to find out.

Let's first consider awareness and familiarity, which of course is vital for generating demand for all these (rather expensive) consumer products.


























As you can see, 3D TVs, 3D Blu-ray, Sky 3D and Nintendo 3DS all manage to achieve creditable levels of awareness. They are not quite at the same levels as seen for iPad and iPhone 4, which we put in for comparison purposes, but creditable nonetheless.

Awareness is relatively strong for these 3D products, but the depth of familiarity is somewhat lacking. Consumers tend to be somewhat familiar at best, and most only either have heard the name somewhere or have never heard of it.

Of course, we are only at the beginning of the push for 3D in the living room. While 3D TVs are now rolling out and there is widespread advertising, the push for 3D Blu-ray is really currently aimed mostly for tech-heads and early adopter enthusiasts.

So, awareness relatively strong, deeper familiarity less so. What about the excitement of those who are at least somewhat familiar with these 3D products?


























Bear in mind that we asked about excitement among those "somewhat aware" of each of these and this level varies by item. We've put the base of somewhat aware consumers in parentheses on the chart.

What we see is that among "people in the know", 3D is pretty exciting. 3D TV even manages to get on par with iPhone 4 and nudge ahead of the iPad - two products recognised to be pretty exciting tech of our age.

So what to conclude?
  • Arguably some fairly strong evidence here that consumers, far from having 3D pushed down their throats, are pretty excited about it
  • It's still fairly early days, but the depth of consumer familiarity with 3D in the living room definitely needs to be increased to stimulate more demand
Does this mean that 3D isn't a fad after all? Well, who knows frankly. It's something we'll continue to monitor at Harris Interactive.


All the data shown is available in Harris Interactive's latest Buzz report - it's FREE - download it here

Get in touch if you want to know more.

Thursday, 21 October 2010

Illustrating the power of social media - iPhone 4 antenna issues and Jay-Z spoof "Newport"

In the latest edition of Harris Interactive's Buzz report, we looked at the awareness and buzz of two recent social media phenomena - the hoo-hah about antennae and reception problems for the iPhone 4 and the viral YouTube and Jay-Z New York music video spoof, "Newport". The original video has since been taken down due to copyright infringement, but whilst it was up it generated hundreds of thousands of views and various versions are can be found online.




Both of these are perfect illustrations of the power of social media. Would the iPhone 4 issues have made headline news across the world if it weren't for the power of blogging, YouTube and Twitter?




Speaking of spoof music videos, the iPhone 4 antenna issue has produced its own tune. This video lamenting the reception has, at the time of writing, been viewed over a million times. And this is just one video on YouTube. Add together all the tweets, the blogs, the complaining Facebook updates and coverage in the mainstream media and, all of a sudden, a technological flaw becomes a social media phenomenon.

But is all of this really just confined to the geekosphere? What about the general public? It's this sort of thing we like to find out at Harris Interactive.




Harris Interactive's latest Buzz report via the Harris Poll looked at how many consumers in the Great Britain aged 16-54 were aware of these two news stories. We interviewed over a 1,000 people online, representative of the national demographic.









So how many GB consumers were aware of these two stories at the end of August 2010?

  • 62% of GB consumers had heard something about iPhone 4 antenna issues - with 21% saying they were extremely or very familiar with the issue
  • 32% of GB consumers had heard something about the Newport music video spook - with 9% saying they were extremely or very familiar with it
That's a lot of people.

That's the power of social media.

The Buzz report not only looks at awareness of issues, we also investigate the degree to which it stimulates people to discuss a given issue. Of those who were at least somewhat familiar with the iPhone 4 antenna issue, a remarkable 55% said they had or will discuss it with their friends and peers. And the figure is 45% for Newport. No wonder news spreads so quickly and with SMS, email, IM, Twitter, blogs, YouTube and Facebook at our collective disposal, we now have the means of spreading the news - quickly and to anyone who cares to listen.

This makes the need for brands to monitor their social media all the more important. Harris Interactive can help. Get in touch with us if you want to know more. 

Download the free Buzz report here.

Thursday, 7 October 2010

Harris Buzz - get the stats on the buzz of the latest tech, telecoms & media launches

At Harris Interactive, we do research into the newest product launches and hot topics in technology, entertainment, telecoms, media and social media.

We created Harris Buzz - a FREE REPORT - a monthly investigation of what UK consumers are aware of, discuss and are excited about in these sectors. The data is based on a Harris Poll survey of 1,000 UK consumers representative of national demographics.

















The last two reports have looked at:
  • 3D Blu-ray
  • 3D TV sets
  • Bing
  • DAB Radio
  • Dell Streak
  • Digital displays
  • Freeview HD
  • Google Buzz
  • Google Chrome
  • Google TV
  • iPad
  • iPhone 4
  • iPhone 4 antennae issues
  • mflow
  • "Newport" - Jay-Z spoof
  • Nintendo 3DS
  • PS3 Move
  • Samsung Galaxy
  • Sky 3D
  • Spotify
  • The Times online paywall
  • Virgin Gaming
  • Windows 7 Series for Mobile
  • Xbox 360 Kinect
The report is free - click on the link to download the full PDF report.
Download here

And get in touch with me if you want to know more.
techmedianow@gmail.com