Future Research: Igniting the power of the passionate consumer
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.