In contrast, television figured prominently for fastfood, but emerged as a second-tier touch point for financial and insurance services, mobile phones, telcos and computers. OMD polled 2,000 people in the 15 to 54 years demographic in Singapore to develop a psychographic profile of six consumer groups in Singapore and their media consumption and buying habits.
The Optimum Insights study found that when buying a mobile phone, newspapers, word-of-mouth, store promoters and shop displays were the most influential channels of information. Television, roadshows, brochures and the internet have less influence. Outdoor media, radio, magazines and ads on trains have the least influence.
On the other hand, when deciding on fastfood, television, newspapers and discount coupons have the most influence. Flyers, word-of-mouth and shop displays emerged as second-tier influencing factors.
In all, OMD covered buying behaviour for 40 categories based on 30 touch points, which went beyond traditional media to include taxis, trains brochures, shop displays, gifts, roadshows and catalogues. The media agency drilled down to specific brands for the six categories
"Word-of-mouth has a very strong impact, especially for infant food formula," said Florence Oong, OMD's director of communication insights, Asia.
OMD Singapore managing director Gan Boon Guan said Optimum Insights would form part of OMD's planning tool kit for clients' use.
Within the survey group, OMD also looked at ad-noting behaviour for the Optimum Impressions portion of the study, which the agency first conducted four years ago. The updated round covered 84 per cent of the overall group.
"One interesting aspect is the perennial 'right over left' question," said Oong. "We found that right is significantly better than left overall for all seven titles. But further investigations showed that the difference became less significant for Straits Times."
Optimum Impressions looked at the impact of size, position and colour.
Along with ST, OMD also looked at The New Paper, Today, Streats and Shin Min Daily.
From the survey of buying attitudes, OMD developed a psychographic profile of six groups of Singapore consumers, with 'greyhounds', 'eagles' and 'poodles' being of greatest interest to advertisers, according to Oong.
She said the 'poodle' set (five per cent of the population) were image-conscious and sociable; 'eagles' (20 per cent) were ambitious in the PMEB mode; and 'greyhounds' (14 per cent) were confident, active and free-spirited.
The remaining psychographic sets were the thrifty 'squirrel', the relaxed 'koala' and the hardworking and prudent 'sparrow', the largest group at 33 per cent.
