The doom and gloom is over-hyped
According to SCA’s research, despite the ‘tough economic climate’ and plans to ‘tighten the belt’, 85% of consumers last year spent the same or more than they had in the previous year.
Last year nearly $40 billion was pumped into the economy during November and December, as consumers got into the spirit buying everything from groceries, to presents and decorations.
SCA has spent the last three years surveying it’s listeners across its network of metro and regional radio stations to explore how they shop, spend and prepare for the festive season – with the aim of providing key insights for the company’s clients.
“We noticed a distinct lack of research in this area, in particular from a media company point of view, which is why we launched SCA’s very first survey back in 2010,” says John Musgrove, National Research Manager. “We’ve had extremely positive feedback from agencies we’ve shared our findings with. And the reason they liked our Christmas study is that there simply isn’t anything else like it out there.”
Respondents for the survey were sourced from SCA’s own listener databases (‘Rate the Hits’ for the Today Network and ‘The Music Jury’ across the Triple M Network). The result was an 1,817 member listener panel which completed the survey. In addition, 508 external respondents were invited to also take part, to ensure the findings were applicable to the market at large.
“Evolving this research has allowed us to really delve into consumer behavior. At the end of last summer we did follow up research on what people actually did during the Christmas period which has allowed us to include intent versus actual data in the reports being released this year,” says Mr Musgrove.
Eight reports are currently scheduled for release over the next few months.
Cathy Thomas, National Sales Director says: “Radio is an extremely effective medium for connecting with an audience, and Southern Cross Austereo has the largest reach of any media company in Australia. Our listeners will contribute about $10 billion to this year’s spend, making their attitudes and opinions vital for our clients.”