15 May 2007

Broadband users spend 48 per cent of their spare time online, new research has shown.

According to a study from Media-Screen, some 54 per cent of this time is spent engaged in entertainment and communication-related activities.

Media-Screen's Josh Crandall told Marketing Charts: "We have found that consumers, on a typical weekday, spend more than 40 per cent of their time consuming media online."

He added that much of this interest is generated by online entertainment and that marketers "need to leverage that interest and focus on catalysing a conversation" instead of using traditional advertising techniques.

As well as entertainment, users spend a large proportion of their leisure time on finding news, shopping and "personal productivity", the study found.

A previous survey conducted by the group found that brands can no longer ignore smaller websites, as people tend to visit websites that are based around their personal interests.

The Netpop Response study revealed that 42 per cent of the websites with less than one million unique visitors are likely to advertise products or brands of interest, compared to 39 per cent of websites with one million or more visitors.

© Adfero Ltd

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