Posted on Sep 02, 2020 In Marketing, Business, Lifestyle, Mobile, Technology, Events, Covid19, Current Work, Brands, Children Research, Education, Informational

What will kids viewing look like in the future?

by Will Brown

At Giraffe Insights, we have been sharing our top learnings, which we have garnered over the past three years through our Kids and the Screen study.

Most of those learnings are based in the here and now, but we must also look forward to help future proof our strategies and ensure we stay one step ahead of the game.

So, what do we think will happen?

  • SVOD will continue to grow, stealing viewing time away from the traditional channels such as DVD. This is primarily being driven by the appeal of pre-school content which is now available. Netflix currently dominates this kid’s space, so we might see further shifts as other SVOD platforms try to catch up.
  • Online will stay at a similar level. Despite all the hype surrounding online and, specifically YouTube, we are not seeing a significant increase wave on wave, in fact it hasn’t moved much in the last two years. The gatekeeper effect is a strong influence behind this, restricting screen time and instead investing time in watching new content together. The emergence of Disney+ has really captured this growing trend towards “together time”.
  • Live TV will continue to decline; however, we do strongly believe it will still have a place within the daily routine and won’t be replaced altogether. Live TV is still where adverts resonate the most, with 50% of all recall coming from this platform. As viewing shifts, brands will be more inventive with how they reach and engage with this audience.
Figure 1 – SVOD has finally overtaken Live TV viewing occasions. We predict that SVOD will continue to go from strength to strength, whilst Live TV will continue to decline and Online content viewing will remain relatively constant.
  • We also believe that screen time will start to be seen as less of a villain, but more of an opportunity for greater learning. The unusual circumstances that lockdown has created has meant parents have been investigating alternative ways to educate and the internet has been a helpful tool for some. This shift could have started to erode the negative attitude towards screen time, providing parents with added benefits, meaning they will be less averse to an increase of screen time moving forwards.
Figure 2 – 69% of parents say they are allowing their child to go online more for educational purposes.
  • We believe there will be a drive from platform providers to dispense “new” content as kids get used to being able to access a wealth of content through the different SVOD platforms which are available. This new content will need to be high quality and satisfy the new needs which are emerging:
    • Educational and entertaining
    • For family viewing
Figure 3 – Edutainment content dominates morning viewing, whilst family viewing takes over throughout the day.

The future is exciting, but it is up to us to keep on top of these trends and future proof the strategies we need to implement within the business to keep us relevant and engaging amongst this younger audience.

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