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
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