The iPad is Changing the Face of Media

There has always been a preconceived notion that Apple's multimedia devices such as the iPod, later the iPhone and now the iPad, would be making drastic changes to how people consume their daily dose of information.  Though they have all been successful in their own right, there was a chance that these devices could be cannibalizing their own market share due to their overlapping feature sets.  The problem was nobody could back that up suspicion with concrete data.  Well, at least that was the case until the Nielsen Company's blog released some interesting survey results which you can see in the chart below.

As you can see in the chart, any kind of visual media, whether it be books, television programs, movies or even magazines, shows a significant viewership increases over the previously market-leading iPhone equivalent.  While this may not be something that is worth getting overly concerned about, it may mean that advertisers may be changing the way they try to reach their audience.

This is the kind of change that is to be expected, just by virtue of the iPad having more real estate on the screen for optimized viewing.  It is a good example of the consumer choosing a superior viewing experience over the convenience of having the device on them at all times.  You can also notice that though the iPad has made significant strides in the visual media, it still trails far behind in the audio medium, because like the iPhone for visual media, it is not the optimal platform for consuming this type of content.

So what does this mean for you, the consumer?  Simply put, you can expect to see larger ads that take better advantage of the abilities that the iPad provides going forward.  Sure, it might not be a complete game-changer, but expect the world's marketing departments to go where the customers are: The iPad.  We'd love to see this trend continue for a long time time to come.