With a glass of wine in one hand and the other on her phone, Frances Lazenby, Ozone’s lead strategist looks at what our first party, mobile publisher data tells us about our readers’ relationships with Food & Drink.
The last few years have seen a definite rise in foodie culture across the nation, fuelled by perennial TV favourites such as Masterchef and Great British Bake Off, as well as new and increased product ranges available in many high street stores and supermarkets. Whether it’s Aperol becoming the new darling of summer drinking, or ‘dine in for a tenner’ deals being a staple of many a shopping trip, there’s no denying that our taste buds have experienced more variation than ever before.
And like many other categories, 2020 has accelerated much consumer change when it comes to the Food & Drink sector. Lockdown created a new breed of home bakers (sourdough starter anyone?), while the initial non-availability of restaurants created a new trend in at-home dates and family celebrations.
At Ozone we have access to a huge wealth of first party data points from our publisher partners that highlights some really interesting patterns in how our readers consume Food & Drink content, particularly on their mobile devices.
Firstly, and contrary to the popular belief that food inspiration spikes earlier in the week as people organise their shopping list ahead of the weekend’s 'big shop', our data shows that consumption of Food & Drink content - including recipe inspiration - peaks significantly on Saturdays.
As you may expect, mobile is the primary device used by readers when engaging with Food & Drink content. Consumption of food content on mobiles spikes on Saturdays, either ahead of the food shop or making plans. Conversely, desktop sees the greatest usage on Mondays, perhaps suggesting people are looking for distractions as they ease themselves into the working week.
We also see mobile usage at its highest on Saturdays at 7am, reducing throughout the morning before rising again slightly in the late afternoon; this is a pattern followed by tablet users as well. This trend suggests perhaps users are looking for shopping or cooking inspiration before the distractions of the day can begin - I’m sure there’s also a Saturday Kitchen inspiration effect impacting those early morning page views too!
Thanks to our direct integration with our publishers, we are able to drill down into content consumption, beyond just Food & Drink at a topline level, and we see some really distinct patterns between related subtopics. As we've previously mentioned, weekends are critical times for readers looking for inspiration when it comes to cooking or baking from scratch, something more closely aligned to grocery shopping patterns. Interest in alcohol also unsurprisingly increases as we hit the weekend!
Conversely, people looking for dining out recommendations begin researching from Monday mornings, suggesting they're already looking for a distraction and want to get excited about plans for the weekend to come.
In our current restricted world, pre-planning is only going to become more important and we’ll be keeping an eye on how these patterns develop over time.
With near universal reach of all UK adults, our reader insights provide a content-driven barometer for real-life consumer behaviours. If you’d like to find out more, drop us a line here.
