“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!’ - Andy Williams (Christmas Song)
It is the most wonderful time of the year, and no - it’s not quite Christmas yet. It’s the Deloitte Media & Entertainment Consumer Insights report 2026!
Most people don’t really get pumped for this, but as a marketer, and as a business that prides itself on taking evidence-based approaches to marketing, this is a genuine gold mine.
This blog will take you through some of the key insights from the report, and what that means for media and marketing for Albury Wodonga and regional businesses as a whole.
Insight #1 - 45 hours and 20 minutes of media and entertainment are consumed each week, on average.
Attention has increasingly become fragmented across different formats, screens and genres, as well as increasingly entertainment multi-tasking.
Video remains the largest category at 16 hours and 55 minutes, but it’s share is falling to other categories such as audio (13h and 30 min) grow in attention share.
Social media consumption sits in third place, at almost 6 hours. This has been dropping in recent years as consumers making the conscious choice to try to disconnect from their phones.
What does this mean for regional businesses?
As businesses in regional towns such as Albury, Wodonga, Wangaratta, Wagga & surrounds increasingly begin to rely on social media and online activities to advertise their busienbsses, there is obvious scope to increase media spend in other channels, such as audio (both traditional radio and music/podcast streaming) and other video mediums, such as free-to-air television and streaming platforms.
Consumers are making the decision to switch off from their social media, so regional businesses must continue to meet their potential customers at all the places they may reside.
Additionally, attention is becoming more difficult to gain, as multi-tasking across devices increases. Regional businesses must incorporate advertising and content that cuts through, creates emotional connection, and builds mental availability. Additionally, having consistent branding via your distinctive brand assets helps to build subconscious links to your brand, when consumers are actually in purchasing mode.
We’d recommend that when you’re building your media mix, don’t put it all into social media and google ads. Look where there is scope for your business to dominate on platforms that we now know hold vast attention - radio, tv, music streaming - that your competitors might not be willing to jump on.
Reel Social + Strategy can help you with this.
Insight #2 = 65% of consumers say advertising influences their purchasing decisions
Free to air television leads overall comfort and influence of advertising channels overall, while social media leads with Gen Z.
TV is still the king - and it has been for decades.
However, we are seeing shifts in different generations, which is important for marketers to be aware of when they are targeted their customers at the bottom of the funnel (read here about not restricting growth by overly narrow targeting).
Overall: TV (46%)
Gen Z: Social Media (65%)
Millennials: Social Media (63%)
Gen X: TV (41%)
Boomers: TV (37%)
Matures: Website Shopping Ads (37%)
What does this mean for regional businesses?
For regional businesses, like those in Albury Wodonga, there are some clear takeaways here:
Firstly, there is no reason to be invested in your marketing. The statistics are clear: 65% of consumers say the advertising influences their purchasing decisions. If you’re consciously deciding to not advertise, there is a great chance your competitors are, and you’re leaving customers, immediate and future revenue, all on the table for others to grab.
You’re also actively deciding to forfeit potential market share to your competitors - which you obviously do not want.
Additionally, these numbers convey the importance of a diversified media mix. Television is still the number one influencer on purchasing decisions, so don’t ignore it’s potential in your advertising plan, especially in regional Australia where audience skew older.
Lastly, this conveys how important it is to understand exactly who your audience is. If you don’t know who is buying from you, or who you want to buy from you, you cannot make informed decisions about what advertising platforms to utilise.
Insight #3 - 48% of people regularly use AI tools in their personal life.
ChatGPT leads AI preferences, which younger users drawing on more models, whereas older users prefer to use a single platform.
40% of regular standalone AI users prefer one model across all activities where they use AI.
39% find AI chat recommendations materially better than AI search summaries.
57% say the AI search summaries prompt more searches. Around one in ten people no longer click on websites and depend on AI recommendations instead.
What does this mean for regional businesses?
AI is a genuine part of every-day life, not to mention at work.
People are increasingly using AI tools as a method of getting through everyday life, and this is slated to continue to grow.
For your business, it’s not yet vital to be visibile on AI search summaries or chat bots, but the evidence is clear: you need to start thinking about it.
As we continue to outsource our decision making to artifical intelligence, it’s going to be more and more important that our businesses are able to be easily understood by AI.
Furthermore, AI is prompting additional searches - so people are still somewhat doing their research. This means it quite important that your website and content answers more than one consumer question or pain point.
The deeper and more useful the content, the better chance it has of being surfaced.
