Nielsen Study: More Video Engagement, Not View Counts = Higher Sales

midem has released an exclusive white paper from Nielsen that looks at the reach of official music videos as well as the correlation between both views and engagement in relationship to digital download sales. The executive takeaway is that increased views do not always correlate with increased sales but higher engagement does correlate with higher sales.

Nielsen's white paper, "Image Conscious: Music Video Streaming Online", takes a look at the viewership of officially released music videos in 8 countries including Brazil, Spain, U.S., France, Italy, UK, Australia and Germany.

They found that Brazil has the highest percentage of web viewers checking out music videos with the U.S. coming in third. Overall the top viewers were in the 18 to 24 age group followed by the 2 to 17 age group.

But what struck me as the truly interesting data was a look at nine top music videos and the relationship between views, engagement and sales.

With some variation, Nielsen researchers found that more views did not consistently equal more digital download sales. But increased engagement, i.e. likes, dislikes, favorites and comments, did tend to correlate with increased sales. So encouraging engagement should have a positive effect on sales.

Given that views can also be monetized by both royalties for online performance and pre-roll/banner advertising, that's a good look overall for the effects of music videos on revenue. In fact, the writers feel that music videos embody the "ethos of a music industry where multiple revenue streams can now originate from one source".

An interesting sidenote is their observation of an increase in official audio-only videos being released prior to traditional music videos. While they point to the marketing value of such releases, one has to also consider the likelihood that this practice is a response to the widespread uploading of audio-only videos by fans.

Of course, by the end of this report, one is left wanting more data as is almost always the case!

See also: 40% of YouTube's Audience Watch Music Videos

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. He is currently relaunching Flux Research to pursue his long-standing obsession with web business models. To suggest music services and related topics for review at Hypebot, please contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.