ExchangeWire Research’s weekly roundup brings you up-to-date research findings from around the world, with additional insight provided by Rebecca Muir, ExchangeWire, head of research and analysis (pictured). In this week’s edition: half of consumers watch VoD everyday; 85% of marketers unable to prove impact of social media; and UK programmatic ad spend to reach USD$2bn.

Half of consumers watch VoD everyday

In the UK, 50% of consumers watch VoD everyday, a 20% increase from 2010, according to Ericsson’s ‘TV & Media Report 2015’. Millennials spend the majority of their time (53%) viewing video on a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. Across all age groups, smartphone video viewing has increased 71% since 2012.

Over half of consumers (52%) change the channel over to avoid adverts, followed by leaving the room (42%), and browsing the internet (34%). Two-fifths (40%) of consumers want to engage with ads to allow them to show products that they are interested in, according to the 'CMO Survey'.

Over four-fifths (82%) of those aged 60+ watch linear TV, compared to three-fifths (60%) of millennials. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of millennials struggle to find something to watch on linear tv daily. Binge viewing is most prevalent on subscription based VoD services compared to free VoD content (87% versus 74%).

Qualitative tracking difficult for social media

In the US, 85% of marketers find it difficult to track the impact of social media qualitatively, with 56.5% unable to track its quantitative impact, according to the 'CMO Survey’. Pageviews (60.3%) are the most frequently used measure of social impact, followed by site traffic (51.4%) and click-through rates. Nearly half of marketers (47.1%) use respondents number of friends, followers and likes to measure social success.

Christine Moorman, director at the CMO Survey commented: "Companies are struggling to objectively assess the value they are getting from their social media investments".

Nearly fifty percent (48%) of marketers stated that they had a solid long-term understanding of their market impact, with 46% having a good short-term overview. One-fifth of marketers (20.5%) are unable to show any impact.

Programmatic to account for majority of ad spend

In the UK, programmatic ad spend is projected to grow 66.2% to £1.8bn in 2015, reaching £2bn in 2016, according to figures released by eMarketer. This growth would see programmatic account for more than half (59%) of UK display advertising.

Bill Fisher, analyst, eMarketer commented: "Trading digital display ads programmatically is becoming increasingly common in the UK, as both marketers and publishers embrace the benefits of automatic buying. In fact, the balance of UK digital display ad spend will tip towards programmatic this year".

More than half (56.1%) of display ad spend will go toward mobile, with desktop/laptop accounting for the remaining (43.9%). The percentage of mobile inventory traded programmatically is set to reach 68% in 2015, with this figure projected to rise to three-quarters (75.5%) in 2016.