Global: Which channel is most effective for brand and product discovery?
September is in full swing, and many brands are now preparing for the 2022 holiday shopping season. As consumers gear up for this year’s holidays, which channels are they using to discover and engage with new brands?
A new global survey with more than 19,000 respondents in 18 markets reveals that social media advertising is the top channel for discovering brands, with 34% of all global consumers saying they learned about a brand in the last six months via social media.
More than a quarter of global consumers say they found a new brand recently via search engines (28%), recommendations from friends and family (26%) and e-commerce websites such as Shopify or Amazon 26%).
Roughly a fifth of consumers say they discovered a new brand in the last six months while watching TV ads (22%), by reading comments and reviews from other customers (17%) or seeing in-store advertisements (15%). One in nine global consumers say they found a new brand while listening to podcasts or streaming music (11%).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, young consumers between the ages of 18 and 44 are more likely to be discovering new brands (77% vs. 68% of all global consumers), especially on channels such as social media (43% vs. 34%), recommendations from friends/family (31% vs. 26%), e-commerce websites (31% vs. 26%) and podcasts/music streaming (16% vs. 11%).
Zooming into a few individual markets around the world, the data reveals big opportunities for lesser-known brands to capture the attention of consumers ahead of the shopping season. More than half of consumers in the US (59%), Great Britain (52%), and France (58%), for example, have not discovered any new brands in the last six months - and this is especially true of older people.
We’re seeing that the top ways people are finding new brands in each of those three markets are through a mix of using search engines, seeing social media ads and getting recommendations from friends or family.
With the hotly anticipated shopping season nearly upon us, it’s crucial for brands to understand the right marketing mix to attract new customers.
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Methodology
YouGov RealTime Omnibus provides quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18 and over in 18 markets. All surveys were conducted online in July 2022. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov RealTime Omnibus.