The 2024 edition of our annual look ahead to how UK consumers will engage with the key shopping quarter of the year. With Black Friday and the build up to Christmas on the horizon, we get a feel for how consumers are feeling, how and when they plan and budget, what they think they’ll spend, and on what.

HOW WE CONDUCTED THE RESEARCH

Through the Lens, Future’s proprietary research platform, we can survey our audiences and a wider nationally-representative sample of the UK adult population. For this research project, we heard from just under 1,000 Brits. Within that sample, 1 in 2 claimed readership or usership of a Future brand, either in print or online, allowing us to compare the Future audience against the UK population as a whole.

TOP FINDINGS 

• Cost of living remains the number one concern for UK consumers
  Brands and marketers will do well to keep this front of mind when planning in the run up to Christmas. Most people are not feeling any better off, but crucially they are planning for Christmas with this firmly in mind, rather than declaring Christmas ‘cancelled’.
• Christmas is very much ‘on’
  Remaining a key consumer anchor point in the year, especially during trickier times, Christmas retains it’s pulling power for the UK consumer.
• Planning starts months ahead 
  The planning timeline for the majority of shoppers starts a few months out from the big day, and many factor in Black Friday deals as part of their gift buying strategy, as many explicitly seek value and deals to make budgets go as far as possible.
• Self gifting ramps up in the new year
  We have in this wave, that shoppers plans extend into the New Year and January sales period. Shoppers pre-Christmas focus is gifts for others and this pendulum swings to self-gifting to ease the January blues.
• Consumer confidence remains
  Our spend data in this survey is indicative of consumer confidence and intention. Very positively, what we see this year is that claimed intended spend is higher in 2024 than the previous two years. There’s lots of windows of opportunity to influence shoppers right now.

Future UK Research Christmas Sales 2024

Discover the full report here

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As gaming developers both big and small face a complex media landscape where highly-desired audiences consume content across a variety of different platforms and devices, it’s more important than ever to break through the noise and find meaningful ways to reach and engage gamers. 

In our new “Solving Discoverability” report, we explore the history of events in the video gaming industry landscape, how they’ve grown, and the unique value virtual showcases like Future Games Show and PC Gaming Show hold not only for gamers discovering their next favorite game, but for a diverse range of developers, publishers and marketers.

Click here to access the full report findings. Interested in partnering with us or learning more about the Future Games portfolio? Get in touch using the contact form on our Solving Discoverability site. 

The post GAME ON: HOW FUTURE DRIVES DISCOVERABILITY WITH BROADCAST GAMING EVENTS appeared first on Future.

In today’s media landscape, premium specialist content has the ability to ignite people’s passions and inspire action, creating loyal viewers, listeners and followers whilst providing a prime brand-safe environment to reach highly-engaged consumers. But what is it about passionate consumers in particular that makes them valuable for advertisers?

Future, the global leader in specialist media, released new research today exploring the media consumption and buying behaviors of passionate consumers, uncovering – and defining – the unique value of this critical audience.

The new report – Ignite: The Power of the Passionate Consumer – examines two key audiences that turn to specialist media: Practical Intenders, people seeking advice online before making purchases, and Passionate Intenders, people that turn to specialist media content as their prime source of information and inspiration.

The in-depth research study, involving over 7,000 participants, found that Passionate Intenders hold much greater value for advertisers; with longer-term spending power, greater attention paid to advertising, and a greater likelihood to trust advertising and be inspired by it.

Furthermore, Future has emerged as a prime destination to reach passionate audiences, attracting nearly 50% of online consumers with a passion across the US and UK.

“While we’ve always known that reaching and building audiences with a passion is a winning strategy for advertisers, we were delighted at the true loyalty passionate consumers have for their favorite brands and media platforms,” said Jon Steinberg, CEO of Future. “At Future, we ignite the passions of millions of people every day. We’re proud to offer advertisers a premium, brand-safe environment that allows them to effectively reach and engage with these influential audiences.”

KEY FINDINGS

Passionate Intenders consume more content
Future’s passionate audiences consume more content, at higher frequency – with 95% consuming media every day (versus 84% for the audience defined as simply having an interest). 85% of the daily media consumed by Future’s high-intent, passionate audience was directly related to their passions.

Passion-based spend is seen as an essential
Passionate Intenders protect the money they spend on their passion above nearly all else. Only spending on basic necessities like groceries and bills is more protected for these consumers. Because of the role their passion plays in their lives, investing in it is seen as essential.

Passionate Intenders spend more
On average, consumers with a passion spend +69% more on their passion than those with an interest – with Future’s passionate audience spending more still. And passionate audiences will spend more over their entire lifetime, offering greater lifetime value to brands.

Passionate Intenders are more influenced by advertising
This audience is 2.4X more likely than those with an interest to pay attention to advertising placed in specialist media environments. Furthermore, 75% of Future’s passionate intender audience said advertising relevant to their passion directly inspired them to make a purchase (compared to 13.4% for the audience solely with an interest).

Passionate Intenders are the ultimate brand ambassadors
Passionate audiences are seen to be the most influential. 7 in 10 consider themselves to be fierce ambassadors for their favorite brands. As they are deemed to be experts on their passion among their friends and family, they were then seen to be 2X more likely to influence their network’s purchases with their brand recommendations.

PASSIONS, DEFINED

“Terms like ‘passion,’ ‘hobby’ and ‘interest’ are often used interchangeably, and incorrectly, in conversations about specialist media audiences,” said Richard Thomas, Insights Director at Future. “Through this research we found that these categories of audiences are indeed very different, with passionate consumers far more likely to spend more, over longer periods of time, on their passion. People live and breathe their passions, and it’s their need for high quality, trusted and expert content that keeps them coming back to their favorite media brands and platforms.”

Discover more about the study and its key findings here, and watch our webinar in partnership with Adweek where the Future team unpacked key findings for marketers.

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