Tuesday, 26 February 2013

HMV closures gets the public talking in latest Buzz survey

Our latest Harris Buzz report is out, the 25th edition. Click here to get your free copy of the full report.


Among all the things we tested, the thing that has got most people talking is the news that HMV stores are going into administration.

Nearly 9 in 10 of the GB general public told us they were aware of the news and nearly 3 in 5 people said they have discussed it with their friends or family.


This makes it one of the most buzziest things for discussion we've ever covered in our 25 series of Buzz reports stretching back to 2010.

Take a look at the all-time Discussion Buzz list (top 25):

Top 25 Discussion Buzz
% of GB public who have discussed...
London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony
75%
Jimmy Savile scandal
72%
Phone hacking scandal
66%
EURO 2012 final
61%
Skyfall movie
60%
HMV stores go into administration
58%
Andy Murray loses Wimbledon final
57%
Final Harry Potter film
55%
Stars at Jubilee concert
54%
2012 Olympic torch relay
54%
Steve Jobs dies
52%
The Voice new series
51%
Britain’s Got Talent new series
50%
Michael Jackson’s doctor guilty
48%
London 2012 tickets on sale
47%
Blockbuster administration
47%
BlackBerry outage
46%
The Hobbit movie
46%
Felix Baumgartner skydive
45%
Brits 2012
44%
Jimmy Carr tax story
43%
PS3 accounts hacked
43%
3D TV sets
42%
Fifty Shades of Grey
41%
Government email spying
41%

You'll also see that Blockbuster facing the same fate also gets into our Top 25 all-time list.

It's not surprising to see HMV get so high in our list. While so many of us have stopped using the High Street for our music, games and videos (the reason for its demise), it was really important for many of us a while back, before we migrated.

And there is a significant proportion of the population who haven't yet migrated to Amazon, Apple, Spotify et al who now have very few choices left in High Street to get their physical entertainment.

Yes, there are plenty of ways of getting entertainment, more than ever before, but if you're someone who isn't happy with shopping online and/or using digital services, then it's a sad day indeed to see such an important chain go under.

The whole list of things we covered in Buzz#25 is listed below. Click here to get the full, free report.

  • BlackBerry 10 smartphone revealed
  • Blockbuster stores go into administration
  • DMC: Devil May Cry video game
  • Facebook announce ‘Graph search’
  • HMV stores go into administration
  • JJ Abrams announced as Director of new Star Wars film
  • Lincoln movie
  • News International wins rights to show Premier League highlights on internet and mobile devices
  • Nokia targets Spotify with launch of premium Nokia Music+ service
  • Rapid rise of ‘Snapchat’ mobile app for sharing images or videos that disappear after a few seconds
  • Sony unveils Xperia Z, ‘thinnest’ tablet
  • Twitter launches ‘Vine’ micro-video sharing service
  • Zero Dark Thirty movie 

Monday, 11 February 2013

Wii U launch fails to generate excitement at launch

I've been a bit late in updating this blog and please be aware that two Harris Buzz reports from December have been released.

Of all the things we tested, undoubtedly the most interesting is looking at GB consumer awareness and excitement of Nintendo's Wii U console launch.

The figures from our Buzz survey aren't going to please Nintendo...



Let's take a look at where the Wii U ranks in terms of awareness and excitement, benchmarked against all the other releases and news items we've covered in Buzz over more than two years.

Firstly let's take a look at how the Wii U launch did at generating awareness, the prerequisite for success.

38% isn't poor awareness. But if you look at the most recent Buzz report, it ranks 114th out of the 287 releases and news items we've covered to date in our series of reports (see page 12).

What about excitement?

At 15%, this places the Wii U launch at joint 105th out of 287 releases and news items covered thus far.

Let's take a look at which other launches have been more (and less) successful than Wii U over the last couple of years in generating an Excitement Buzz. We look at lots of things in Buzz, so in this list we've only included device launches and game releases (so nothing about Saville, Oscars, Michael Jackson, or anything like that) so that we have a fairer comparison.

Excitement
3D TV sets  29%
iPad 2  29%
iPhone 5  25%
The New iPad  25%
iPad   24%
Amazon Kindle Touch  23%
Nintendo 3DS  22%
Smart TV  22%
Xbox Kinect 22%
Windows 8 launched  21%
4G UK  21%
Call of Duty: MW3  21%
iPhone 4S  21%
Call of Duty: Black Ops  20%
iPhone 4  20%
iPad Mini  19%
Kindle Fire UK  19%
Samsung Galaxy Note  19%
PS Vita  19%
Amazon Kindle Fire  19%
Kindle eBook  19%
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 18%
Nexus 7 tablet  18%
Samsung Galaxy S3  18%
Google Chromebooks  18%
Nokia E7 smartphone  17%
Sony Ericsson Xperia Play  17%
3D Blu-ray players  17%
FIFA 13 16%
BlackBerry PlayBook  16%
Samsung Galaxy Tab  16%
LA Noire 16%
Portal 2 16%
Nintendo Wii U 15%
Assassin’s Creed III 15%
Res Evil: Retribution  15%
HTC One launched  15%
Battlefield 3 15%
Nintendo  ‘3DS XL’  14%
Kinect: Star Wars 14%
Resident Evil 6 trailer  14%
Kinect for PCs launch  14%
Fable III 14%
Surface launch  13%
Batman: Arkham City  13%
Crysis 2   13%
Halo: Reach   13%
Halo 4  12%
Hitman: Absolution  12%
Res Evil 6 game  12%
Optimus 4X HD  12%
Microsoft SmartGlass  12%
Mass Effect 3  12%
HP TouchPad  12%
Motorola Xoom  12%
Far Cry 3 game  11%
Nexus 4  11%
Nexus 10  11%
Sleeping Dogs 11%
Max Payne 3  11%
Apple TV  11%
Fallout: New Vegas  11%
New Super Mario  10%
Lumia 920  10%
Darksiders ll  10%
Guild Wars 2 10%
Microsoft Xbox Music  10%
Project Glass  10%
Gears of War 3  10%
Sony Move 10%
Google TV   10%
Football Manager ‘13 9%
Madden NFL 13  9%
Diablo 3 9%
Rage 9%
Ouya Console   8%
Dishonored 7%
Deus Ex: HR 7%
Dell Streak 6%
NBA 2K13 5%
World of Warcraft free 4%

As you can see, the Wii U console launch puts in on par with some hefty big selling games, but it's way off the excitement levels we see for the illustrious handsets and tablets. It also trails the launch of the Vita and Kinect.

This is disappointing.

It's early days of course. The console battle is fought over years rather than weeks. My earlier post about the Wii being "doomed" generated a fair amount of criticism, especially as pre-sales were healthy boosted by an impressive range of launch titles. But more recent sales figures are suggesting the Wii U is struggling and with impending news of Sony's and Microsoft's next consoles for release later in 2013 can only make things worse for Nintendo.

So I go return to the theme from my earlier post: Is the Wii U doomed?

Well "doomed" is a bit melodramatic. It sold well at launch and it received plaudits as well as a little head-scratching by what it was all about. It may be that its killer apps are in development and we'll all be blown away by how creative the mixed use of controllers and tablets will be. And let's not underestimate Nintendo who have done more to pioneer in this industry than anyone else.

But the data is showing very clearly that it has not really caught the imagination of the the public. 

Not yet anyway.