What Kids Watch On The Web: Entertainment, Education Winners With Sub-20 Kiwis
Auckland – 10 July 2001 – The battle for sub-20 kiwi surfers is heating up, according to latest research from
Nielsen//NetRatings. Over the last two months two domains have made a strong showing: entertainment site dragonballz.com
and encyclopaedia site britannica.com.
Britannica.com appeared in Nielsen//NetRatings data in May this year showing 24,900 unique at home visitors in
May, a growth of 64 percent from 15,200 in April. On the site, visitors can search the encyclopaedia, dictionary,
thesaurus or the Web, and there are feature articles and an education section with homework advice. Its audience is a
near even gender split.
Dragonballz.com, a domain that spins off the top-rating kid’s television action cartoon DragonBallZ, attracted 20,700
unique at home visitors in May, a growth of 37 percent from 15,100 in April. Males make up over 85 percent of site
visitors and the audience is strongly skewed towards under 18s. On the site, kids can learn about DragonBallZ characters
and storylines, download screensavers and desktop accessories, join live chat and listen to audio clips from the
television series.
“Both britannica.com and dragonballz.com moved fast to build strong brand loyalty with this young audience,” says Brian
Milnes, Managing Director Pacific, ACNielsen eRatings.com. “Britannica.com has been slowly building over time, while
dragonballz.com started showing in our data in April, which makes its rapid audience growth impressive. In terms of
targeting a particular demographic, these sites are contesting positions held by perennial favourites of this age group
such as text messaging site mtmsms.com and music downloader napster.com.”
“While more young people are visiting Britannica’s site than dragonballz.com, they are spending four times longer at
dragonballz.com. Visitors spent around 12.35 minutes over the month on dragonballz.com versus only three minutes at
britannica.com. This suggests that Britannica users visit the site with a purpose - probably homework - quickly find
what they want then leave the site, whereas dragonballz.com surfers find this site attractive and worth exploring at
length.
“Sites like dragonballz.com present an opportunity for marketers of kids products and services, either via banner
advertising, sponsorship or click through,” adds Milnes. “Dragonballz.com is an excellent example of the successful kids
sites that are adept at leveraging their broadcast of bricks and mortar presence against straight online plays to
capitalise on the interactivity and immediacy of the web.
ENDS
About Nielsen//NetRatings
Nielsen//NetRatings reports on Internet audiences and advertising in 26 countries worldwide, representing more than 90
percent of the global Internet audience universe. The countries are: the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Canada,
Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brazil, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, France, Italy, Spain,
the Netherlands, South Korea, Taiwan, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Israel and Mexico. The total estimated Internet
audience universe in these countries is nearly 379 million individuals.