Comscore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a trusted partner for planning, transacting, and evaluating media across platforms, today shared new audience insights that provide context behind online social gaming platform Roblox’s strong DPO performance in March 2021, and the strong growth in online gaming communities’ reach and engagement, especially amongst younger age groups. In February 2021, Roblox saw 34 million unique U.S. consumers spend 6.3 billion minutes accessing its desktop and mobile gaming platform, a growth of 32% and 39%, respectively. Comparatively, Zynga’s desktop and mobile platforms saw 28 million monthly unique digital visitors.
While consumers have often looked to on-the-go breakfast options, breakfast at home has been making a comeback during COVID-19. But it’s not just cereal and pancakes that are now in demand. Similar to the trend of surging meal kit sales, consumers have been flocking to smoothie subscription boxes. Consumer spending data reveals how sales for smoothie kits have skyrocketed throughout the pandemic, as well as which smoothie box companies are leading the pack in terms of market share growth and customer retention. Since January 2019, the market size for smoothie subscription boxes has tripled. Sales accelerated the most in the early months of the pandemic, and monthly year-over-year sales growth in 2020 averaged 97 percent.
The food and beverage industry was the most impacted and devastated business during the COVID pandemic, costing hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue loss and millions of jobs shuttered across the globe. Haidilao (6862.HK), the most dominant hot pot chain in China with 1,298 stores globally and employing a workforce upwards of 15,000, was not spared from this devastation. But the famous hot pot chain’s losses due to the pandemic was short-lived and was largely confined to the first half of 2020. During the latter part of 2020, Haidilao saw a full recovery of its overall performance. Sandalwood data indicates a bounce back for the company’s overall daily sales value in late December 2020 to the same period a year ago.
Historically, success in personal care has meant winning precious shelf space from brick-and-mortar retail giants. This has created a large barrier to entry for new brands and left entrenched standbys with the lion’s share of the market. A recent faction of upstarts, however, has turned this model on its head by offering personal care products directly to consumers through their own websites. In this week’s Insight Flash, we look at some of these brands to see which ones have the highest spend growth, how loyal their customers really are, and whether cross-shopping implies that there may be consolidation in the space. Over the last year, Billie and Manscaped have seen the highest y/y direct-to-consumer spend growth, although it has decelerated from triple-digit levels in early 2020 to 37% for Billie and 24% for Manscaped in February 2021.
If we live in an attention economy, then there's no doubt where people are currently directing their eyeballs. Our new data for Q1 2021 reveals that consumers are spending more time than ever in apps – and the surges in some countries have sent daily dwell times past five hours. In a stay-at-home year for billions of people, the app habit grew stronger in all markets analysed. The global average time spent was 4.2 hours a day, up 30% compared to two years prior. In Q1, daily time spent passed four hours in the US, Turkey, Mexico and India for the first time. In Brazil, South Korea and Indonesia, it was more than five hours.
There's been no shortage of content to watch as the streaming platforms have exploded during the last year. And, although most people have been able to watch movies on their TV's or phones, in the comfort of their living rooms, there's just nothing like the experience of a darkened theater, 30 foot screen, body-shaking surround sound, and a bucket of buttery popcorn that gives you a stomachache near Act III. And as we round the corner back to normalcy, we take a look back at how movie theaters digital marketing reacted and adapted to the pandemic.
The coronavirus forced people to reconsider and even scrap their vacation plans altogether. While reservations through short-term rental sites like Airbnb and VRBO plummeted 47% from January to April, bookings slowly recovered in the following months. Experts theorize short-term rentals in remote markets offer a social distance-friendly experience, with multiple bedroom-units and whole homes furnished with full-service amenities, including kitchens, making longer-term stays more convenient.
In today’s Insight Flash, we take advantage of our newly launched UK channel data to do a deep dive on how online shopping behavior has changed in the Apparel, Accessories & Footwear world since the COVID-19 Pandemic. We break out online vs. offline spend growth for the overall industry and included subindustries, as well as the percentage of sales through each channel by subindustry. For Apparel, Accessories & Footwear in the UK, online growth outpaced offline growth even in 2019. Online spend growth was positive for the first seven months of 2019 while offline growth was negative. And even though online trends turned negative in the next few months pre-pandemic, offline trends were more negative still.
The streaming wars are raging in 2021 and the arena is stacked with old and new players. Companies are leaning on digital ads to entice new subscribers with exclusive content, new releases, and beloved classics. Paramount+ is the latest streaming company to debut in 2021, replacing CBS All Access as the dedicated streaming platform from ViacomCBS. Paramount+ spent $15M in digital ads from the beginning of the year leading to the launch on March 4th. In the time leading up to the launch, Paramount+ spent more than its peers like HBO Max ($12M), Peacock ($5.7M), and Discovery Plus ($13M).
Estimates show that around 22.2 million jobs were lost during the pandemic. That said, the recent Labor Department reports have shown a resurgence in hiring, particularly in industries like retail and restaurants as businesses begin to re-open with easing lockdown measures. This influx of people looking for new jobs during the pandemic has sparked a greater need for virtual hiring and recruitment through mobile apps. As a result, the increased demand has brought about new platforms that have an all-in-one approach for hiring, with an emphasis on features such as video interviews. Traditional platforms such LinkedIn and Indeed are also seeing significant growth. Linkedin and Indeed saw 25% and 20% quarter-over-quarter global download growth in Q1 2021, respectively, to date (Mar 28, 2021). For example, our State of Mobile report found that LinkedIn ranked second for apps most likely to be used by Millennials in 2020.
Since restrictions on social gatherings were introduced in March 2020, many U.S. consumers have turned to animal adoption to keep themselves company during the coronavirus pandemic. The pet industry as a whole observed 18 percent growth from March to December of 2020, with most of this growth driven by the pet supplies sector. Sales for the pet supplies sector have increased in the COVID-19 era. Meanwhile, pet care companies (dog walking, dog hotels, pet vacations and entertainment services) have been dealt a huge blow, as consumers have stayed home and sought new ways to keep their furry friends entertained. Year-over-year growth for pet care companies dropped 47 percent in March 2020 and has not fully recovered.
Everyone’s talking about non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. Whether this craze is a flash in the pan or a major shift for the blockchain economy, one thing is certain: NFTs, and NFT enthusiasts, are going mobile. Investment, trading, and crypto apps received a lot of attention over the past few months as crypto prices soared and investors like Roaring Kitty made trading more interesting. In fact, Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, Webull and more broke their lifetime records for engagement during the Game Stop saga.
Crash Bandicoot: On the Run has launched across iOS and Google Play worldwide on Mar 25, 2021. In just one day, the game has garnered over 9.1 million downloads in the top 8 markets alone including the US, Brazil, Mexico, Italy, Russia, France, Germany and Spain. The game saw 2.6 million downloads in the US alone, ranking #1 Overall by downloads across iOS and Google Play.
The pandemic has significantly increased the demand for at-home fitness, so much so that health and fitness app downloads increased 30% in 2020. Not only are consumers spending more time working out at home, but they are looking for new, interactive ways to keep moving. And many have turned to connected devices to keep moving. In fact, within the top 10 IOT (Internet of Things) and fitness tracking apps, we've seen download growth in the triple digits from Strava and Nike Training Club — the latter offering access to premium features for free during the height of the pandemic — a change they made permanent in July 2020.
The pandemic has had a mixed impact on vitamin companies. While wellness giant GNC declared bankruptcy in June and announced it would close 1,200 stores, DTC vitamin companies are flourishing. More specifically, ecommerce vitamin companies like Ritual and Persona have seen their sales and market share increase during the pandemic—appealing to customers through a combination of personalized offerings, a focus on online sales, and influencer marketing. For the past three years, sales for the vitamin category have been trending downward. By Q4 2020, vitamin sales were 68 percent of what they were in Q1 2018. Interestingly, the vitamin market follows a pattern every year, in which sales spike in Q1 before tapering off for the remaining three quarters.
As the global COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the United States in early 2020, both grocery and food delivery services saw huge increases in business. Several online grocery purchase platforms saw a 6x increase in new customers making their first-ever purchase during the week of March 31. States like Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois and Pennsylvania saw particularly high growth in consumers opting to have their groceries delivered for the first time. Throughout the summer of 2020, food delivery services remained popular and spending continued to remain more than 100% above 2019 levels.
The average mobile consumer has an increased number of apps downloaded on their mobile device. In H2 2020, the average consumer had 110 apps installed, an increase from 87 apps during the same period 2 years ago. The pandemic accelerated this behavioral change hitting a peak in hours spent during H1 of 2020 (when lockdowns were at their peak). Time spent in apps remains high even as many consumers are now able to venture out in a post-lockdown period.
Like most sports leagues, the NCAA has had to overcome much to execute a full season this year - the pandemic, shuttered schools, covid protocols. But, perseverance and determination has paid off as one of the most celebrated tournaments is set to begin - March Madness! And what accompanies a massive sports competition...Digital Ads, of course.
There’s no doubt about it, the computer hardware industry came out on top during COVID-19. While people were stuck at home during the pandemic, there was a higher demand for computer hardware for people working at home. There was also more time for gamers to invest in better, faster gaming equipment. Using SimilarWeb’s alternative datasets, we can see that website traffic to the U.S. computer electronics hardware industry surged 48% year-over-year (YoY) in 4Q20. Indeed on a YoY basis, 1Q20 traffic dropped 4%, before rising 24% in Q2 and 32% in Q3.
Even before the pandemic, online mattress shopping was on the rise. According to the International Sleep Products Association, 45% of the mattresses purchased in 2018 were through online sales. Those numbers will surely be higher once 2020 is tallied. Online bed-in-a-box startups, of course, have been challenging the sleep status quo for years. Today there are over 200 online mattress retailers, one for every sleeper — no matter your preferred sleep position, size, material, type, and budget. There are even organic and eco-friendly options for a greener sleep.
