Planning in a fragmented media landscape

Media fragmentation refers to the public’s attention being spread out across multiple channels and outlets.  The ever-increasing range of media outlets means that audiences can be engaging with one, two or  three channels within the same hour, often even at the same time. To understand fragmentation we’ve looked at data from the UK Touchpoints survey which tracks shifts in media consumption over time. 

Prior to the pandemic the UK was already observing fragmentation due to the digitisation of media - for example the rise of the internet, social media and connected devices. But the pandemic, and its associated influences on human behaviour (in particular more time spent online),  appears to have accelerated the rate of fragmentation, with the share of overall commercial media time far more varied in 2021 vs in 2015 (see Figure 1). In 2015 commercial TV, radio and social media accounted for 73% of all commercial media time, in 2021 that went down to 62% (despite a 3pp increase for social media).

Figure 1 Share of Total Commercial Media Time, by Channel, from Making Sense (IPA, 2022)

Media fragmentation becomes even more pronounced when you look within certain channel groupings, especially social media. Figure 2 shows the total media time spent per day with social media networks for 2018 and 2022, and across two age groups: 15-24 and 55+. The older audience is spending longer across all applicable social media today. That’s not strictly true for the younger group, where time spent with most social media networks has been relatively flat over this period. But the main story for 15-24s is the meteoric rise of TikTok in recent years. In 2018 TikTok had only just launched in the UK, by 2022 it has risen to 0.7h of time spent per day with 15-24s. A clear example of how media continues to fragment as new channels are introduced to the mix, changing audiences' patterns of consumption.

Figure 2 Total media time by social media network: 2018 vs. 2022 (Touchpoints)

As expected, media fragmentation has led to the diversification of media spend - many campaigns now run across more channels than they did 5 years ago. For the discerning advertiser, leveraging potential cross-channel synergies and tailoring creative to specific channels can produce more effective marketing campaigns. But in order to capitalise on the potential benefits of media fragmentation, there needs to be an emphasis across audience expertise, media effectiveness and creativity - all of which already underpin the best campaigns. 

Holistic marketing measurement, especially econometric approaches like Marketing Mix Modelling (M3) offer the best insight into the effectiveness of different media channels, both in isolation, and when combined.