TikTok accounts for around 15% of the total time spent on social: Red Seer Report
Red Seer Consulting recently published their research on MENA’s digital media environment. Following an era of Facebook and Youtube, and more recently the image phase in the form of Instagram and SnapChat, the strategic research consultancy experts deem short-form video content to be the next big thing. Last year, online users increased their time spent […]
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Red Seer Consulting recently published their research on MENA’s digital media environment. Following an era of Facebook and Youtube, and more recently the image phase in the form of Instagram and SnapChat, the strategic research consultancy experts deem short-form video content to be the next big thing.
Last year, online users increased their time spent on digital media to 80 per cent up from 70 per cent in 2018 – partly a consequence of the pandemic. Presently, this translates into roughly 2 to 2.5 hours spent daily on social media and messaging apps, and 90 minutes looking at short-form content.
RedSeer’s research highlights that online users in the MENA region have embraced digital media, including short-form content, very rapidly compared to other regions of the world. Already, short-form content, and TikTok videos in particular, accounts for around 15 per cent of the total time spent on social media across the region.
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“The exponential speed with which short-form content has taken to this region has been remarkable,” explained Sandeep Ganediwalla, Managing Partner of RedSeer Consulting in the Middle East.
For the advertising industry, short-form content comes with a notable advantage: consumers of short-form videos tend to be bigger online spenders than other digital media content users. RedSeer estimates that this ‘spending gap’ varies anywhere between 40 per cent and 130 per cent depending on the product category.
“This bodes well from a monetisation standpoint,” explained Ganediwalla. He added that brands and marketing companies should therefore prepare their short-form content strategies well in advance of blockbuster eCommerce events such as Black Friday and Ramadan, with for instance over 50 per cent of consumers surveyed in the UAE stating that they would use Tiktok to discover new products and services for this year’s Black Friday shopping fest.
Total sales during this year’s Ramadan were up by 20 per cent compared to the year previous, while consumer appetite for e-commerce purchases during Black Friday – an American feast which has expanded globally – has seen steep growth in the region over the past years.
Beyond digital media, a recent report from PwC found that the digital channels – also including media channels such as television, radio, music, podcasts, and video games – will soon account for nearly half of total media & entertainment revenues in the Middle East and North Africa region.
