Co-viewing culturally relevant content on OTT devices key to ad receptivity
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Joseph O'Halloran
| 25 August 2020
A study from music video platform provider Vevo, in partnership with MAGNA and IPG Media Lab, has revealed significant nuances in multicultural audiences’ video viewing behaviour.
Vevo multicultrualstudy 25Aug2020
The Anatomy of a Video Experience: A Multicultural Study explored how audiences consume content across multiple devices and their motivations around viewing
habits. Understanding these subtleties, said Vevo, is key for advertisers and brands looking to reach receptive audiences and better inform their planning efforts.
The study found that all of the US audiences observed – covering Black/African American, Asian, Hispanic/Latino and White communities – shared a love of co-viewing, watching video with someone other than yourself, on over-the-top (OTT) devices compared with desktop, mobile, laptop and linear TV.

In addition it found that longer viewing periods result from content that people find culturally relevant, specifically sports and music. On average, 37% of highly culturally relevant content viewing sessions last for one hour or more. When it came to ad receptivity in particular, viewing music content on OTT devices was key, with over 60% of each group responding that they would be receptive to ads.

While co-viewing on OTT devices spanned all surveyed groups, each demographic displayed marked differences around why, when and how they watch content on various devices. For example, older Asian audiences were more likely to seek out informative videos for task-based viewing sessions across all devices whilst their younger counterparts were more likely to watch binge-friendly genres, like music, resulting in longer viewing periods of over an hour across all devices.

By contrast, as a whole, Black/African American audiences watched binge-worthy content for longer periods of time. However, unlike younger Asian audiences, younger Black/African American viewers tended to watch content in shorter spurts of less than 30 minutes, likely driven by higher levels of mobile usage.
Black/African American viewers were also the most likely audience to seek out music and sports content. OTT is the leading platform to resonate with Black/African American viewers at their most engaged with 63% of audiences being receptive to ads on devices offering OTT content.

English-dominant and bilingual Hispanic/Latino viewers tend to have longer watch time, while Spanish-dominant audiences watch for mid-length sessions of 30-59 minutes. A third of total Hispanic/Latino viewing sessions last longer than one hour and three fifths of this demographic who were watching music on OTT services were receptive to ads.

“With recent findings showing that 79% of Vevo’s connected TV content is being co-viewed, it’s important for us to understand the nuances of audience behaviours in order to pass on these insights with our clients and partners,” remarked Vevo SVP of research Bryon Schafer about The Anatomy of a Video Experience: A Multicultural Study. “No screen is seeing a greater surge in Vevo viewership than the television, which has seen an increase of over 20% since March of this year with 61 million viewers exclusively engaging on connected TV screens.”