Already 30 percent of digital natives consider influencers more credible than traditional media
Y&R Group Switzerland has published the latest edition of the Media Use Index. Not only daily newspapers but also tablets are losing ground. On smartphones, the Facebook Group reigns supreme—and influencers are seen as increasingly credible.
The study shows how digitization is advancing and changing the media usage behavior of the Swiss. Paid daily newspapers continue to lose readers. The smartphone is increasingly becoming a messenger, while telephoning is losing importance. In addition, a critical trend is emerging: 30 percent of digital natives already consider influencers to be more credible than traditional media - and the trend is rising.
Paid daily newspapers continue to lose readers
Paid daily newspapers continue to lose readers in 2018. Just 45 percent of the Swiss still consume this medium at least occasionally. Internet use via tablet is also declining for the first time. By contrast, access to the internet via smartphone continues to increase at a high level.
Smartphone establishes itself as smart messenger
The most popular activity of the Swiss on the smartphone remains writing and reading messages via WhatsApp, iMessage and similar services. Across all generations, the smartphone is establishing itself as a smart messenger, as it is used more often for texting than for any other activity. The proportion of people who access the Internet via smartphone browsers is also rising continuously.
The Facebook Group continues to dominate on the smartphone
The influence of the Facebook group is impressively demonstrated by the Swiss population's favorite apps. The first three ranks are occupied by WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, all of which belong to the same parent company. Facebook continues to lose ground to Instagram.
The purposes for which the smartphone is used vary greatly from person to person. The unprompted question about the three favorite apps produced a total of over 680 different results. While WhatsApp was mentioned around 1,100 times, Spotify was the tenth most frequently mentioned app with less than 100 mentions. This shows that it is a challenge even for large digital brands to remain top of mind with users. At the same time, there are opportunities for niche providers who can score points with consumers through their relevant offerings.
Instagram and Snapchat are more important to digital natives than Facebook
For digital natives, Snapchat is now more important than Facebook in addition to Instagram. After Facebook was already displaced by Instagram last year, Snapchat is now also positioning itself ahead of Facebook. WhatsApp continues to play in a league of its own and remains the most important social network platform.
One-third of digital natives consider influencers more credible than traditional media
The proportion of Swiss people who say they follow influencers is virtually unchanged from the previous year at 59 percent. Influencers are people who have built up a wide-reaching community through their activities in social networks, in which they have a high level of relevance and credibility and can therefore influence opinions.
Musicians and actors are particularly popular influencers among the Swiss. Two out of three digital natives (65 percent) who use social media, for example, follow at least one musician; among digital immigrants, the figure is 58 percent, and among silver surfers it is still 47 percent. 30 percent of digital natives even find influencers more credible than traditional media. This is an increase of 43 percent compared to the previous year, which must certainly be viewed critically with regard to the fake news issue.
Streaming on par with live TV
57 percent of Swiss people stream TV content at least once a week. The upward trend is thus continuing in 2018. In contrast, weekly consumption of live TV continues to stagnate at 59%. Among digital natives, streaming is already by far the dominant way of consuming moving image content.
Information on the "Media Use Index" study:
The Media Use Index study by Y&R Group Switzerland examines the media usage and information behavior of the Swiss population on an annual basis. For cross-comparison purposes, the study divides the online population into three generations: Digital Natives (14-29 years), Digital Immigrants (30-54 years) and Silver Surfers (55-69 years). The study was first conducted in 2009 and is being published in its tenth edition in 2018. For this purpose, 2,000 people between the ages of 14 and 69 from German- and French-speaking Switzerland were surveyed online about their media usage behavior in collaboration with Marketagent.com. The sample is representative according to official structural data for Switzerland.
Responsible: Urs Krucker (Strategy & Client Services Director), Lukas Diem (Head of Strategy), Pirmin Wyss (Strategic Planner)
