Month: August 2021

More than a quarter of the U.S. population lives with a disability, and many of us who aren’t disabled likely know someone who is living with one. While film and TV content have made progress in depicting stories of disability, as evident in the surge of programming inclusive of disabilities and related themes over the last 10 years, advertising featuring people with disabilities lags far behind. With a $21 billion market potential, advertisers can’t afford to miss the opportunity to engage with the disabled community and its allies.

Highlighting the impact that living with a disability can have on consumers’ experience with a product reinforces a sense of belonging. It also has the potential to drive dramatic change in people’s daily lives. We talked to Christina Mallon, influencer, activist and Global Head of Inclusive Designer and Digital Accessibility at Wunderman Thompson about what advertisers can do to craft an informed and inclusive message. She is at the forefront of raising awareness, increasing accessibility and innovating with brands for people living with disabilities.

For additional insights, read our recent articles Visibility of Disability: Answering the Call for Disability Inclusion in Media and Visibility of Disability: Portrayals of Disability in Advertising.

In July, broadcast recaptured television viewers, growing a percentage point thanks to high-profile sporting events coupled with the opening weekend of the Olympics. This shift in viewing meant that cable gave up some ground while streaming also picked up a share point. This is potentially a precursor to August viewership behavior, which will reflect the full duration of the Olympics. At 28% share, streaming benefitted from the continued momentum of the growing stable of streaming services and a healthy influx of new content to the more established services. While it may be too early to call it a trend, streaming has gained 1% with each interval of The Gauge since its release.

Take me to the methodology details below.

“Behind the scenes, sports also likely impacted streaming’s share. This includes many of the Olympics highlights clips, which were posted on YouTube, where we saw some minutes increase. We’ll stay tuned for next month when we’ll have the full impact of the Games to review,” said Brian Fuhrer, SVP, Product Strategy at Nielsen.

Watch the video to hear Brian discuss how sports played an outsized impact on July’s share of television viewership, building from last month’s conclusion of the broadcast season, to the NBA Playoffs on to the Olympics.

In an era of big data, personalization is critical for marketers looking to develop authentic and meaningful relationships with consumers. The same is true for content platforms, and that’s a trend we’re seeing among some of the newer video streaming entrants. Compared with the early days of streaming, when platforms largely aimed to satiate all audiences at one fell content swoop, a handful of platforms are taking a more focused engagement approach.

We know that streaming platforms are steadily evolving their user experiences to help connect audiences with content, but as competition rises, platforms will be more likely to target specific audiences—through marketing, content and ads—rather than hope for the best by trying to appeal to everyone. When we look at the total U.S. TV universe, we see that White audiences account for 66% of the minutes of linear TV programming viewed in the month of June 2021. Across linear TV programming and some of the major subscription on-demand (SVOD) platforms, the percentages were even higher. And although Gracenote Inclusion Analytics shows shifts in representation of many diverse identity groups in content, there is still a notable opportunity for publishers outside of the more traditional channels seeking to engage racially and ethnically diverse viewers with unique content that reflects their unique experiences.

Amid the sea of growing choice, content becomes a key differentiator, especially when publishers identify needs that are not being met. SVOD remains the biggest draw across the streaming space (51% of minutes viewed in June 2021), but ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD), multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) and virtual MVPDs (vMVPDs) have grown to account for a combined 36% of viewing share. And an array of publishers in these categories are attracting more diverse audiences than traditional TV and SVOD options are.

Black audiences, for example, accounted for 24% of all minutes viewed across all AVOD services in June. Among AVOD platforms, Tubi, owned by Fox, attracts the largest share from Black audiences: they watched 39% of the minutes viewed from this platform in June, significantly more than the 17% of the minutes they watched on linear TV. Pluto TV, owned by ViacomCBS, also attracts a sizable Black audience, which accounted for 36% of the platform’s viewed minutes in June.

Hispanics account for 19% of the U.S. population, which is very close to their representation in the U.S. TV universe (18%). This community, however, spends notably less of its time with traditional TV than it does with streaming services, including newcomer AVOD platforms like Pluto TV and Tubi. The real standout, however, is YouTube, which accounted for 21% of viewing minutes among Hispanics in June.

Race and ethnicity, however, aren’t the only demographics that content publishers can hone in on. Unsurprisingly, Disney+ attracts the biggest share of minutes viewed among people 2-17, given its extensive back catalogue of animated classics as well as content from across Disney’s associated brands and franchises, such Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars. Persons 55 and older are at the opposite end of the spectrum and dominate linear TV viewing. But that doesn’t mean they’re not streaming, as this audience accounts for a notable share of time with Amazon Prime Video and several of the newer AVOD and MVPD/vMVPD entrants.

Knowing who’s watching what and for how long has always been critical for brands, but the increasingly fragmented media landscape makes it more challenging to track everything—especially as new options come online. And given the growth of ad-supported streaming services, connected TV (CTV) ad spend is one of the most rapidly growing areas in advertising. In fact, eMarketer forecasts CTV spend to reach just over $13.4 billion this year, including almost a 50% increase in spending during the TV upfronts.

Importantly, TV is no longer just a tool for mass reach. Consumers today would be hard-pressed to find a TV that is not internet-capable, and nearly 80% of U.S. homes now have at least one enabled device, according to Nielsen’s national TV panel. That connectivity and growing options in the streaming video space provide advertisers and media buyers the ability to engage with viewers in live, linear, on-demand and streaming environments. Importantly, audience targeting was the top marketing tactic cited by the marketers surveyed for this year’s Nielsen Annual Marketing Report, yet more than half have yet to consider real-time targeted ads.

Despite the growth of streaming, brands and media buyers should not abandon more traditional media options, especially when they are evolving. For example, linear streaming TV programming has become a media mainstay that kept the attention of TV viewers for three hours per day during the month of June 2021.

No matter the platform, creating content that resonates with unique audiences, especially those that have been historically excluded from representation on TV, is a strategy that continues to win with viewers, advertisers and new entrants to the streaming wars.

Living with a disability is increasingly a part of everyday life. ​​Whether the disability is seen or unseen, more than a quarter of the U.S. population has one, and many of us who aren’t disabled are likely to know someone who is living with one. We know that media has the power to shift the narrative around disability by better reflecting the real lived experience of people with disabilities. So, while film and TV content have made progress in depicting stories of disability, as evident in the surge of programming inclusive of disabilities and related themes over the last 10 years, advertising  featuring people with disabilities lags far behind. With a $21 billion market potential, advertisers cannot afford to miss the opportunity to engage with the disabled community and their allies.

Most of the time, disability is absent from advertising, except when it’s focused on products that treat disabilities. Rarely do ads show disabled people in everyday life, such as working, parenting, household chores or enjoying activities. In a custom analysis of Nielsen Ad Intel data, we looked at nearly 450,000 primetime ads on broadcast and cable TV in February 2021. Of those ads, just 1% included representation of disability-related themes, visuals, or topics. 

Considering this active consumer target, the missed opportunity to incorporate people with disabilities into everyday brand messaging could be costly. There is an opportunity for brands to incorporate depictions and experiences of life with a disability in their messaging and product designs without centering on it. The media, marketing and advertising industries have an opportunity to help break down social stigmas around disability by making people with disabilities more visible.

Hollywood has made progress in depicting disabilities but much more needs to be done to provide more opportunities to disabled talent. Our analysis found that ad spend inclusive of people with a disability and disability related themes in February totaled nearly $57 million, but just 3% went to ads featuring disabled people or that were inclusive of disability themes in the creative.

And pharmaceuticals, health care treatments, devices and similar made up nearly 50% of the total dollars spent in disability-inclusive ads. While treatment and managing care are important aspects of living with a disability, it’s important that life with a disability is seen as more than just prescriptions. Advertisers have the opportunity to showcase people with disabilities in everyday life, engaging with the products and services brands offer.

When ads are more inclusive, they have an impact on all audiences, not just those living with a disability. Inclusivity, however, means an increase in representation in ads across the category spectrum, not just in Pharmaceuticals. An overabundance of these types of representations can reinforce stereotypes of people with disabilities. When brands from a broader range of industries are more inclusive of disabilities in their creative, they help balance the narrative and normalize living with a disability.

Highlighting the impact that living with a disability can have on consumers’ experience with a product reinforces a sense of belonging. It also has the potential to drive dramatic change in people’s daily lives. But to be authentic in targeting, advertisers must have the right team to craft an informed and inclusive message. Christina Mallon, influencer, activist and Global Head of Inclusive Designer and Digital Accessibility at Wunderman Thompson is at the forefront of raising awareness, increasing accessibility and innovating with brands for people living with disabilities. Not only is she an expert in her field, but she’s also clear about how brand messaging and products impact her own life every day as a person with a physical disability.

A recent Nielsen survey found that people with a disability are more likely to feel that there is insufficient representation of their identity group on TV. The lack of representation in linear TV and advertising, which reaches more than 80% of the adult U.S. population, may be why disabled social media influencers and creators often carry the weight of rewriting the narrative around the media’s presentation of disability. From educating on inclusive language to the proliferation of captions for video segments across TikTok or Instagram, disability representation and inclusion topics are advancing at the grassroots level while more traditional media catches up. Influencers like TikTok’s @Scarlet_may.1, Instagram’s @Chelsiehill, @blindishlatina, @Christina_disarmed, among others share their personal stories through relatable content. Influencers are stepping in to share product hacks and recommendations of inclusive brands to diverse followers including people with disabilities, their loved ones and allies—all consumers open to spending on brands that take action on causes they care about.

While progress is being made to increase the visibility of disability, there are immediate steps that the advertising industry can take to accelerate it. Engaging with organizations that are leading the charge to improve representation in media, such as RespectAbility and ReelAbilities, can help brands fine tune future strategies, especially as many look ahead to 2022. When it comes to creative development, brands can cast more disabled people and develop more inclusive storylines, while being careful not to slip into “inspiration porn,” which is often used to motivate non-disabled people at the expense of the disabled experience. When planning a campaign, brands must include various formats and accessibility features to accommodate a variety of people living with different disabilities. Brands can also improve representation in their organizations by hiring more people living with disabilities, like many organizations that are part of the Valuable 500. 

Living with a disability is the reality for millions and a part of the diverse identities people want to see authentically portrayed in the content they consume and reflected in the brands they buy. Whether a disability is seen or unseen, the unique perspective of someone with a chronic illness or other disability can enrich a brand’s inclusion efforts and the experience of consumers with a disability. Acknowledging people with disabilities as an important part of your target consumer base means understanding how your products or services uniquely add value to their experience.