Proprietary Panels: Engage
Objectives: Engage is a syndicated offline and online tracker study run by Ipsos Media in the UK to tap into the ownership / usage of, and attitudes to, technology by Britain's gadget using population. It is designed to understand penetration and usage of a wide range of emerging and established media products.
Methodology: we use Base Engage, to survey 3,000 people face-to-face every quarter on which forms of technology they use. A further 10,000 people who use digital technology have been recruited online and divided into modules: Vision, Sound and Connect.
Vision: asks users about their habits concerning TV, HDTV, digital television, Interactive TV and PVRs (systems like Sky+).
Sound: asks questions on digital radio, iPod and mp3 players.
Connect: finds out about other online technology including mobile phones and connected services, broadband, webfeeds, blogs, etc.
Each module contains a selection of online surveys for the panel members to complete (each participant is only invited to take part in the surveys for the products that they own). There are 23 surveys in total, including Interactive TV, Video-on-Demand, Mobile Music, iPod/MP3, Blogs and Social Networking Websites.
An online methodology ensures cost-effective recruitment of the panel we need and allows panel members to access their surveys whenever it is convenient for them. The survey is conducted via a specially designed portal website. Panel members can also interact with each other about the media technology issues of the moment via the website's forum.
Outcome: The study runs twice a year and combines an offline usage tracker (which acts as our establishment survey and runs once a fortnight) with a bi-annual online diagnostics survey which provides a comprehensive understanding of:
- How many people are using new technologies
- Who is using them
- When they are being used
- Why they are they being used
- Willingness to try future new media innovations.
The second full wave of Engage took place in summer 2007 and the third is due to take place at the end of the year.
Want to know what insights Engage has generated? Here are some fascinating statistics it has unearthed …
- While 58% of people have internet access in their own homes, just 3% of people have seen or have contributed to a blog.
- Although 7% of adults own a high definition TV set, only 3% have subscribed to any high definition channels.
- Over one third of DAB radio set owners intend to buy another one in the next year, whilst nearly 40% of mp3 owners will buy another mp3 player in the next 12 months.
Find out more about Engage
Contact: Jim Ford t: 020 8861 8155