3D – gold rush or bust?
Today, we are releasing data and analysis from our New Media Measure™ interpretations report, “3D State of Union: Are Consumers Ready?” Leading up to, and after the release of “Avatar,” discussion and debate about the viability of 3D entertainment has been on the rise. Will it succeed? What will be the impediments to success? What do consumers think? Is 3D in the home appealing enough to drive purchases of new televisions? For the first time, thanks to Michael Cai and Brenton Lyle of Interpret, we now have quantitative data to answer many of these questions and begin to build a perspective on the future of 3D entertainment.
With research data, people tend to look for the “ah-hahs!” but often some of the more interesting data are what confirms our suspicions. In this case, we intuit that the 3D glasses are a major impediment to the success of 3D, which the data supports not surprisingly. Interestingly, though, the people you would expect to have greater comfort with the glasses are the 3D theatergoers. In fact, just over half of 3D theatergoers report wearing glasses as their primary dislike of the technology, versus 3D game players, only 37% of which have concerns about the technology. The other way to look at this, and perhaps the more pessimistic view, is that those with more experience with the technology are more likely to dislike it. All of which means, the glasses are a problem no matter what your experience with 3D.
The glasses aren’t the only impediment. We found that the average amount of time between consumers replacing the primary television in their household is 4.5 years with nearly half claiming it takes 6 or more years. We, like many others, believe that consumers looking to upgrade their primary televisions are now facing a choice between HDTV and 3D. Consumers will need to weigh the relative value of purchasing either type of television. A key finding from the study that should cause concern in the industry, is that consumers are very confused about 3D, and in fact, are misinformed about how the technology actually works. Consumers tend to be much more informed about HDTV and believe the length of time the technology has been in the market will be to their benefit in terms of price.
The consumers most likely to purchase a 3D set are early adopter consumers – who just happen to be those that already bought an HDTV set. Of the 54% of consumers who currently own an HDTV, they purchased it on average approximately 1.7 years ago. So, promoters of 3D television sets have their work cut out for them.
There is good news - 5% of heads of households in our study stated that they are “definitely interested” in purchasing a 3D TV in the next 12 months. As Michael Cai points out, “Even though consumer self-reported purchase intention needs to be discounted significantly, the percentage of 3D TV intenders is nothing to be sniffed at. Based on consumer data, we anticipate more than 4 million 3D TV sets to be sold in the United States in the next 12 months.”
That is perhaps a large enough number to keep content creators interested in producing for the format. Without their support, 3D will once again experience a stalled start and we’ll all be discussing what could have been.
