WHO BUYS CHILDREN S BOOKS AND

Transcription

1 WHO BUYS CHILDREN S BOOKS AND W H Y: UNDERSTANDING THE MOST VALUABLE US CHILDREN S BOOK CONSUMERS 2015 Copyright 2015 The Nielsen Company 1

2 FOREWORD BY KRISTEN MCLEAN EDITOR NIELSEN CHILDREN S BOOK RESEARCH WELCOME TO NIELSEN S FIRST CONSUMER SEGMENTATION OF THE US CHILDREN S BOOK MARKET! Inside you will find portraits of the four different types of US families who are currently buying books who they are, what they look like, and how they are engaging with your content. We are very excited to introduce this research for two reasons. First, we believe it represents jumping-off point for a whole new understanding of the book buying families currently purchasing in the US. Up until now, we have looked at children s book buyers through a single lens as if all families had the same interests, attitudes, and behaviors. And we have learned a tremendous amount about the general drivers of the US Children s Book Market. But now we want to understand more Who are the most valuable customers among all children s book buyers? What makes them so valuable? How do they buy differently than other families? Where do they live? Where do they shop? What is important to them? And moving beyond these current customers, which types of households represent the best opportunities to grow our market? Which brings me to the second reason we are excited. Now that we have identified these different segments, we can now apply these filters to all of our research moving forward. We can now tease out valuable information to show YOU how to activate these key customers in a wide variety of areas including: marketing platforms, shopping channels, technology, literacy efforts, educational channels, by ethnicity, and much, much more. So, enjoy getting to know these four segments of your children s book business! You will find plenty of rich data to help you target your current efforts, and we also hope it gets you thinking differently about your business in the future. We look forward to building on this great foundation. KRISTEN MCLEAN 2 WHO BUYS CHILDREN S BOOKS AND WHY: UNDERSTANDING THE MOST VALUABLE US CHILDREN S BOOK CONSUMERS 2015

3 CONTENTS OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY... 4 SEGMENTATION OVERVIEW... 7 SEGMENTATION KEY INDICES SEGMENTATION DETAIL PARENTAL ACTIVITIES AND ATTITUDES CHILD ATTITUDES AND ACTIVITIES BUYING BOOKS FOR CHILDREN GENRES BOUGHT AND SOURCES USED INFORMATION SOURCES AND PURCHASE TRIGGER POINTS APPENDIX: SAMPLE DEMOGRAPHICS Copyright 2015 The Nielsen Company 3

4 OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY 4 WHO BUYS CHILDREN S BOOKS AND WHY: UNDERSTANDING THE MOST VALUABLE US CHILDREN S BOOK CONSUMERS 2015

5 OBJECTIVES Nielsen Book, through its ongoing Books & Consumers survey, through various deep-dive surveys into discrete segments of the market, and EPOS data held by BookScan, has a deep understanding of the consumer book market generally, and the children s book market specifically. In 2015, in order to help gain an even deeper understanding of the 0-12 children s book market, Nielsen Book conducted a segmentation study to identify how different parts of the children s book market behaved, which were the most valuable to the publishing industry and how to target them most effectively. The study delved into the different attitudes and behaviors of parents in America to examine how these influenced their book buying behavior. What genres and channels do they use most? What sort of messaging would resonate with each segment? What might make them increase their book purchasing? And what can the publishing industry do to help encourage this? How can you use these segments in your own marketing and selling of Children s books? Knowing that these segments exist is one thing. But how to make your marketing investments more cost-effective and efficient is perhaps the greatest benefit of this segmentation. For example, you can identify which segment may benefit more from a book that is packaged with a game versus another. And using Nielsen s Consumer Activation services, we know where members of these segments live, what other media they consume, where they shop, and a vast array of other information about their political and religious outlooks, their commuting patterns, and much more. Nielsen further offers the ability for you to have your own internal customer files appended with these segments. We can also identify where, geographically, your own sales are well penetrated, where there is more up-side potential for you to increase your sales, and where your product mix is less likely to gain traction (thus saving you from wasting your precious marketing dollars). Please contact us for more information about activating these segments for your own internal purposes. Copyright 2015 The Nielsen Company 5

6 METHODOLOGY The fieldwork was carried out using an online vehicle between July 24, 2015 and July 31, 2015 by Harris Interactive. 1. For broad data about US Children from birth to 12 and books purchased for these children, we drew on Nielsen s nationally representative Books & Consumer monthly tracker. 2. For the individual segmentations, we followed up with a survey of 3,000 parents consisting of 1000 parents of children in each of the following age bands: 0-4; 5-8 and Within each age band, we ensured that the sample was balanced to reflect the age and gender mix within each band. 3. In the case where a parent had a child in more than one age band, they were asked to report for a single child in one age band only. This insured that answers were accurate, and that behaviors were clearly delineated. The question set was designed to tease out differentiating behaviors and attitudes among parents and children to enable us to cluster them together in the most like-minded groups. The results of the survey were analyzed within the following age bands: 0-4 when parental influence on reading is high for children. 5-8 when children are beginning to make independent reading choices, but their parents are still influential when children are much more in control of their own reading activities. 6 WHO BUYS CHILDREN S BOOKS AND WHY: UNDERSTANDING THE MOST VALUABLE US CHILDREN S BOOK CONSUMERS 2015

7 SEGMENTATION OVERVIEW Copyright 2015 The Nielsen Company 7

8 SEGMENTATION OVERVIEW Nielsen s US Children s Segmentation Study 2015 chose to look at the children s book market within 3 age ranges: 0-4, when the parent is paramount in choosing what book content their children engage with; 5-8, when the child is becoming more independent in what they want to read and lastly, 9-12, with newly independent readers who are taking a more direct role in what they read (and the other media they consume). According to data from Nielsen s continuous monitor of consumer book buying, Books & Consumers, purchases for the 0-4 age group account for 43% of the units bought for children aged 0-12, and 37% of the dollars spent on books for children under 13. Books bought for 5-8 year olds account for 38% of units, and 39% of dollars (making it the most valuable age group to the publishing industry), and books bought for 9-12 year olds account for 19% of units and 24% of dollars spent. Within each of these three age bands we uncovered four discrete segments which, broadly speaking, overlap in their key characteristics within each age band: the Disengaged; the Gamers; the Social Omnivores and the Avid Readers. Avid Readers account for a quarter of children aged 0-4, 27% of children aged 5-8, but only 19% of children aged The Disengaged account for 29% of the youngest market, 20% of the middle market and 17% of the older market, with Gamers accounting for 30% of 0-4s, 33% of 5-8s but only 19% of The Social Omnivores start out as the smallest group among the youngest children only 16% of that market, growing to 20% of those aged 5-8. It s only when children reach 9 that this group reaches its full potential accounting for nearly half (45%) of all children in this age group. 8 WHO BUYS CHILDREN S BOOKS AND WHY: UNDERSTANDING THE MOST VALUABLE US CHILDREN S BOOK CONSUMERS 2015

9 SEGMENTATION OVERVIEW There are common attitudes and behaviors of the segments between the age groups: The Disengaged: Under-index on many of the measures and are not heavily invested in most of the activities tested although they do over-index on books, and might therefore also be characterized as a potential market for publishers. The Gamers: Video Games are more appealing than books at all ages, both off- and (particularly) on-line. The Social Omnivores: Involved in everything keen on books, new media, old media and fun and games. And like talking about all these things! The Avid Readers: The core audience for publishers at all ages. They love reading and are nearly always the heaviest buyers and borrowers of books. The importance of Avid Readers to the book market is paramount in all age groups. In the 0-4 group, they account for 50% of book purchases and an astonishing 86% of book borrowing. By 5-8 they account for 41% of buying and 71% of borrowing. In the 9-12 group they are slightly less important, dropping to 38% of buying and 58% of borrowing, overtaken by the now much bigger Social Omnivore sector, accounting for 40% of purchasing, and 23% of borrowing. Copyright 2015 The Nielsen Company 9

10 CHILDREN S BOOK MARKET SEGMENTS: OVERVIEW While Social Omnivores account for the smallest proportion of the very youngest group, they account for nearly half of all 9-12 year olds, stealing share from all the other three segments, particularly Gamers and Avid Readers. DISENGAGED GAMERS SOCIAL OMNIVORES AVID READERS % 30% 16% 25% % 33% 20% 27% % 19% 45% 19% 10 WHO BUYS CHILDREN S BOOKS AND WHY: UNDERSTANDING THE MOST VALUABLE US CHILDREN S BOOK CONSUMERS 2015