The UK’s record extreme weather heatwave drove significant engagement with related content in the last seven days, as the Met Office issued an unprecedented red warning and Brits nationwide prepared to bake.
And engagement with non-weather content categories, including Pets, Home & Garden, Careers and Travel, has all bubbled up as consumers turned to our trusted publishers for advice as the mercury started to rise.
Weathering the UK’s record heatwave
With extreme heat a national focus this week, and Weather topic page views up +179% in the last seven days, several related content categories and topics saw engagement bubbling over the promise of record UK temperatures.
Worried animal lovers drove +86% page views growth for our Pets content; Home & Garden’s +47% growth was driven by a more than doubling of Home Appliances page views; Remote Working topic engagement in Careers almost tripled; and +167% growth for the Rail Travel topic drove Travel to a +7% engagement increase WoW.
Our weekly Weather audience grew to its second highest of the year. Last week’s 3.5m unique users – which is 744k lower than 2022’s record audience record in mid February when a trio of UK storms hit – increased by +153% week on week.
Within our News & Politics content category, engagement with the Weather topic accounted for 13% of all page views, with attention almost tripling by +188% week on week. Comparatively, Politics topic attention fell by -25% compared to the previous week.
On average, our Weather audience read 3.1 pages of relevant content last week – up +10% week on week and the second highest number this year. From Met Office warnings and travel updates to tips on staying cool, our publisher content offered a range of advice.
Take Action
As with the political storm in Westminster last week, planning for extreme weather conditions is no easy feat. But seasonal weather conditions can be anticipated and our publisher content about how consumers can prepare for hot (or cold!) weather spells see higher audience numbers and greater levels of user engagement.
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Reading the Nation will connect you to our broadcast-scale audience - who we see across the Ozone platform in their millions day-in-day-out - to unearth insights into their habits and behaviours when topics start to trend or big stories break.
