Advertising in Wales

Do you want your brand to be seen by a mass and diverse audience, across Wales?

If so, check out the latest statistics for different advertising media in Wales!


TV

On average, people in Wales spend 2 hours 45 minutes per day watching broadcast TV, the second most of any nation. Unsurprisingly given the passion for  sport in Wales, the most-watched TV program in 2022 was Six Nation Rugby: Wales vs. France (Ofcom, 2023).

On average, ITV reaches 80% of adults per month in Wales, with “I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here” becoming one of Wales’s most popular programs – reaching up to 615K adults in one episode alone (ITV, 2023).

S4C, aimed at a Welsh-speaking audience, offers a potential yearly audience of almost 2.5 million people in over 1.3 million homes. 

CTV

CTV ‘Connected TV’ is content accessed via apps and streamed over smart TVs, or a connected device, such as Amazon Fire Stick, PlayStation, and Apple TV; Nationally, CTV is heavily on the rise with a 15.7% growth rate expected for 2023 (Statista 2022).

7 in 10 TV users in Wales had a connected TV device, and users were more likely to connect their TV to the internet via a box (Sky+ or Virgin Media) by 44%, compared to England with 32% (Ofcom 2023)

VOD

According to Ofcom 63% of all Welsh households are currently subscribed to at least one VOD service and the average viewing duration for these services is 4 hours and 43 minutes whilst people in Wales are estimated to spend 15% of their total video viewing time on video-on-demand services, as well as 15% on video-sharing websites/apps.

Radio

Radio is a highly effective form of advertising, reaching 88% of the adult population weekly, equivalent to 49.4 million people.

The average listener tunes into 20.5 hours of live radio each week, and a record 39.2 million people are tuning into commercial radio every week, up by 1.3% on the quarter and 8% on the year.

North Wales appeared to have the most success in Q2 2023 RAJAR’s update; Capital North Wales’ reach increased from 100,000 to 121,000, up a staggering 21% and Heart North Wales reach has also increased from 89,000 up by 14%. Its total listener hours are up by a staggering 40% from 606,000 to 846,000, whilst the share of listening is up from 2.9% to 4.1%.

Heart South Wales in Q2 has the highest number of active listeners with 403,000, with a 21% reach.

Radio advertising makes it possible to customise messages to each audience, helping targeting specific demographic groups, local communities, and geographical regions.

Radio has the highest rate of ad avoidance, demonstrating how radio listeners are much less likely to “tune out” when there are radio commercials.

(Rajar 2023)

Transport

The Q1 (2023) TFW report has recorded across South Wales alone that 300,000 passengers have used bus transport to commute every week and is estimated that around 100 million bus journeys were made in 2022.

Reportedly bus advertising is the most-seen outdoor advertising medium, reaching over 48 million adults over a two-week period (Route, 2023).

There has been a total of 5.4m passenger journeys made on TFW trains across Wales in Q1 of 2023, this is still down in comparison to pre-pandemic levels (Wales Online, 2023), On average 71% of regular rail users have noticed an OOH ad in their respective station in the past week (Clearchannel, 2023).

OOH/ DOOH

Out-of-home and Digital out-of-home advertising has the ability to reach 98% of the UK population at least once a week, highlighting that OOH is a very powerful method of advertising (outsmart 2023). It has been suggested that on average 71% of the UK population acknowledges an advert at the roadside (75 Media, 2023).

OOH and DOOH drive online engagement as well as purchase intention or service use, almost 26% of surveyed customers have visited a website in response to an OOH advert, and a 38% increase in mobile engagements (75 media, 2023).

The top 3 performing OOH/ DOOH sites in Wales are:

  1. ‘M4 Super 6’ located in Newport with 574,923 weekly impacts.
  • Swansea Bus Station Large Digital Format with 498,000 weekly impacts.
  • Static 6 sheet located on Newport Road, Cardiff with 259,346 weekly impacts.

Digital Audio

Amazon Music accounted for the highest listening time in Wales on music streaming services with 24% – 4 times the UK adult national average (Ofcom, 2023).

The average Spotify user is estimated to spend 25 hours per month listening to music (Ferjan, 2023).

Podcasts have grown massively in popularity in recent years, from 2022 it was estimated there would be an average of 22 million monthly listeners in the UK (Cybercrew, 2023). As a result, advertising through podcasts has become highly favourable in a marketing mix, expecting to see a growth rate of 15.7% at the end of 2023 (Thepodcasthost, 2023).

Social Media

More than 9 in 10 (92%) homes in Wales had an internet connection in the first half of 2023 (Ofcom, 2023).

An average person in the UK is estimated to spend 145 minutes every day on social media platforms (Workup, 2022), with Facebook remaining the most-used social media platform with 44.8 million active users nationally (Thesocialsheppard, 2023).

Instagram came in second with 35 million active users at the end of Q2, while YouTube was third with an estimated 16.3 million users in the UK (Statista, 2023).

If your looking to start an advertising campaign across Wales, Get in touch with our experienced team.

[email protected]

Video/Connected TV streaming continues to be on the rise

A survey conducted by The Trade Desk with YouGov surveyed 1,010 adults consumption of video content on our screens,  living in the U.K. in June 2022. Research was conducted with Savanta surveying  250 advertisers across brands and agencies in the U.K. who spend a minimum of 2 million pounds annually.

In 2022, streaming video content continued to entice viewers from all age groups and demographics. While this change has created more fragmentation for viewers and advertisers alike, it also gives advertisers more opportunities to significantly expand their reach and place their ads alongside the most-watched content with more precision. In response, many are adapting their marketing strategies as they consider budget in this vibrant new world of premium content

Key findings were

73% of the UK population choose to watch shows/movies on streaming platforms

47% of UK viewers say they are spending less time watching traditional TV

51% of UK viewers are open to either a free service funded by advertising or a less costly service subsidised by tailored adverts

76% is the amount that advertisers are prepared to increase their spend by on connected TV

88% of advertisers say they are likely to buy inventory from a streaming platform if it offers exclusive access to live sports or other premium content

Streaming is now the most popular way for U.K. consumers to watch content, 73% of the population watching shows and movies on streaming platforms.

 68% per cent say they watch traditional broadcast TV. Respondents shift between streaming platforms and linear TV…so this is not an either/or situation, more viewers utilising both, dependent on the content they want to consume.

84% viewers in the 18- to 34-year old age category  and 83% viewers in 35-54 age group favour streaming content over traditional TV.

64% 18- 34-year-olds spend up to two hours a day watching streaming content.

In addition to Netflix and Disney, U.K. Broadcasters from Channel 4 to ITV to Sky are all producing top-notch content for their own streaming services, All4, ITV Hub, Sky Now & BBC I player.

 40% of U.K. viewers spend more time streaming with 47% spending less time watching traditional television.

These figures are good news from an advertiser’s perspective, as advertisers can apply data to TV advertising in ways that are not possible in traditional, linear TV, driving precision and aiming to add value.

88% of U.K. advertisers say they are likely to buy inventory from a streaming platform if it offers exclusive access to live sports or other premium content

What is being watched and streamed?

In the 18 –34 year old age group.

44% stream documentaries

46% watch comedies on streaming platforms

41% catch up on dramas

In addition viewers in the 35- to 54-year-old category show a similar predisposition to watching this kind of content via streaming rather than traditional TV. These insights are not lost on advertisers who are spending budget accordingly against drama – 50%, comedy 48%, entertainment 48%, and live sports 48%

26% of British viewers prefer streaming platforms as their go-to viewing method for live sports.  A quarter of all Brits – 17 million people use streaming and video on-demand (VOD) to follow sports events.

55% of U.K. viewers do not want to spend more than 30 pounds per month on streaming services. As an alternative, 51% per cent of U.K. viewers are open to either a free service funded by advertising, or a less costly service subsidised by tailored ads. In response to these findings more than 6 in 10 (64%) of advertisers mention that their brand is likely to increase spending on programmatic CTV by 76% in 2023.

67%  of advertisers expect to grow their ad budgets for programmatic campaigns to align with live sports events on streaming channels and connected TV.

For advertisers, streaming channels offers the opportunity to access audiences on a more granular level and it can offer a more insightful metrics.

Brand lift (44%), viewability (42%) and campaign reach and frequency (33%) are the top three metrics used by advertisers to measure the performance of live sports on connected TV. 60%  of these advertisers cite better measurement capabilities on connected TV compared with traditional television. 59%  say there’s more flexibility on CTV, while 51%  say CTV allows them to target specific subsets of live sports viewers.

If you need some help with your marketing, get in touch by emailing us on [email protected]

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