From festivals in farmers’ fields and weekends full of wedding wow to spectacular sporting occasions and beautiful beachy holidays, summer brings with it a truly unrivalled fun factor for millions of Brits nationwide. Our latest insight feature has more.

Summer officially starts later next month – thank goodness – and the promise of sunnier weather brings with it superheated audience engagement with related content categories and topics across our premium publisher portfolio.

To get to know where audience engagement grows during the sunniest of the seasons, we looked at the summer months last year and compared them to the three months before. In 2022, the categories showing the most growth included Travel (+28%), Style & Fashion (+28%), Shopping (+14%), Sport (+11%), Events & Attractions (+9%) and Food & Drink (+5%).

While there are no huge surprises, what we’ve seen previously provides a strong indication of where brands can expect to connect with audiences seeking summer fun this year.

Travel’s taking off again

Take Travel for example. While 2023 has so far seen the industry bounce back to pre-pandemic levels with many summer holidays already planned and booked, there will no doubt be a strong market for late bookers and those making last-minute preparations who will turn to our publishers for holiday inspiration and advice.

Key topics driving growth last summer included  Travelling with Kids (+110%), Travel Accessories (+60%) and Accommodation, including Hotels and Bed & Breakfasts (+28%). Of all Travel audiences, families are far more likely to be looking for a last-minute trip, so targeting this audience, in particular with final deals for the summer, is likely to land impressive campaign results.

Sizzling summer styles glow up fashion

The summer months also drive some of the highest engagement of the year for our Style & Fashion category. New season’s trends and the need for a new summer wardrobe drive growth. Summer’s start sees the greatest engagement increase with the Women’s Fashion topic, as interest in the new season’s styles peaks and remains high. Typically, Men’s Fashion doesn’t spike until July.

Children’s Clothing sees enormous growth at the start of the school holidays. July and August are by far the biggest months, driving nearly 30% of annual page views for the topic in those months alone. Brands should consider activating women’s messaging ahead of the start of the season and upweight men’s once the summer begins before switching to back-to-school clothing around exam results time when parents and pupils are thinking about the new term.

Outdoor dining fires up food

We’ve also found that the better the weather the higher the engagement when it comes to Food & Drink. With people looking to spend more time enjoying alfresco aperitifs or dining in the sun, we see growth across related topics.

Page views for Cooking increases considerably during the summer with BBQ & Grilling recipes a particular area of interest. We see considerable growth in the lead up to heatwaves, up by a further +70% in the seven days prior to the hottest weeks of the year.

The Alcoholic Drinks topic also drives huge category growth across both Beer and Spirits, which also grow more the hotter weather. Previously, the first heatwave of the year saw nearly +25% growth for the topic.

Brands wishing to connect with our foodie audience can maximise the impact of Food & Drink campaigns in the lead up to hotter periods using dynamic creative that changes depending on the weather.

Love Island boosts Reality TV

Finally, it would be remiss to talk about the summer and not mention Love Island. Love it or loathe it the now bi-annual series is the first major of the year and drives huge interest in our Television category. As the first must-watch Reality TV show of any year and our related content becomes must-read.

In 2022, average weekly Reality TV page views throughout the 2022 series were a massive +50% higher than the 12-month average. The key weeks for engagement were the prior to the series launch when the Islanders were revealed (+99%); the series debut (+39%); Casa Amor week, when new Islanders are thrown into the mix (+32%); and the series finale (+33%).

No doubt, we’ll see similar engagement trends for our Television and Reality TV content when the 2023 summer series kicks off in early June.

Want to know more?

We’ve plenty more insight into the categories that get fired up by the summer months. Email showing the most growth in the summer months, see our Sport insight feature or download our summer insights below.

Want to know more? 

We’ve plenty more insight into the categories that get fired up by the summer months. Download our summer insights report, see our recent sport insight feature or drop us a line at [email protected].

Alternatively, if you want access to MORE unique insight like this at your fingertips, sign up to Ozone Ad Manager FOR FREE to explore the content consumption habits of our nationwide audience of 43m internet users.

Ozone Ad Manager is exclusively available to our agency and advertiser partners. First-time users of the platform can sign up to register to use it here oam.ozoneproject.com.

For more information, contact your Ozone agency sales representative to find out more or email [email protected].

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