Seventy per cent of Hong Kong university students who spend time
surfing the 'Net report that they were unable to recall any Web
advertising whatsoever - this is just one of the findings of a survey
conducted by MindShare and The Young Agency of the Hong Kong Baptist
University's School of Communications.
The study aimed to determine the Web usage habits of the SAR's tertiary
students.
Polling 405 students from seven Hong Kong universities in February and
March this year, research revealed how the Internet's early adopters
were getting to grips with this "cool medium".
Seventy per cent of respondents reported sessions in cyberspace of up to
two and a half hours per day, logging on for an average of five to seven
days per week - and while 60 per cent said the Internet did not affect
their newspaper and magazine buying habits, up to 40 per cent were
ditching traditional mass media in favour of the 'Net.
Students were also swapping time spent watching TV for surf time -
consuming 42 per cent less TV and 24 per cent less radio.
In addition, 37 per cent said the Internet had prompted them to slash
their magazine readership, while 27 per cent admitted they now spend
less time reading newspapers.
And the trend isn't about to change, in the near future at least; as 55
per cent of students negated the possibility of boosting their print
readership in the next three months.
According to Mr Ralph Szeto, associate director of MindShare's digital
arm, Mdigital, most alarming of all were the findings revealing that 70
per cent of all students polled could not recall seeing any online
advertising.
Up to four per cent of students had even banned ads altogether and
installed their own ad filtration software.
"The advertising recall is low and a lot of respondents said they
ignored advertising on the Web, outright," Mr Szeto told CReATION.
"From the agency and the creative side, we need to be working a lot
harder to bring the creative up to scratch and grab people's attention,"
added MindShare Hong Kong managing director KK Tsang.
One solution, noted Mr Szeto, was increased broadband access, beefing-up
"the cool content in terms of the audio and visual elements".
"When users have 56K modems they can't download a lot of good creative
or TV commercials - but with broadband, sites will be more able to
provide audio and visual impact".
Proving that ecommerce is not yet poised to change the face of retail as
we know it, student shoppers on the Web were few and far between with,
at best, lukewarm purchasing habits.
Although credit card usage was rampant after the second university year,
when applicants are authorised to apply for cards, a meagre 13 per cent
of students showed the confidence to flash their plastic and purchase on
the 'Net.
Of these, 28 per cent regularly participated in online auctions, 16 per
cent traded in stocks online, nine per cent bought CDs, six per cent
purchased videos and the four per cent minority spent on books.
"Auctions are going well because they offer students the latest consumer
electronics - like mobile phones and laptops - at what could potentially
be a cheaper price," said Mr Szeto.
While surfing the 'Net, most students (30 per cent) visited university
websites, followed by 18 per cent who opted for portals and search
engines, 13 per cent who frequented email sites such as Hotmail and 12
per cent who tapped into the research resources offered by online
newspapers.
In order to track ongoing usage trends on the 'Net, Mr Szeto said the
collaboration with TYA would extend to a follow-up survey tracking the
next university semester (Q3 and Q4).
