Come October, the high-value “holiday shopper” stays top of mind, but an important audience not to miss this season is the holiday host. From holiday decoration purchases, inspiration searching, and recipe-saving, you won’t want to miss what this audience is cooking up.
New data from Involved Media’s Connected Audience Study, fielded in Q3 of this year, shows that hosting duties are not limited to the night of a gathering.
Over half of Americans plan to host winter holidays this year
Just over half of people in the study of the average American media consumer (54%) report planning to host a gathering around Christmas or New Year’s this year. Roughly half of consumers host Christmas, and about one in five hosts New Year’s Eve, with a high amount of overlap.
Hosting households standout
The presence of children in the household is one of the clearest drivers of hosting behavior. Sixty-eight percent of people living with children under 18 host at least one winter holiday event, compared with 46% of those without kids. In households with toddlers, the propensity spikes further: 61% host Christmas and 29% host New Year’s Eve, both well above the total population. Families who have been in their homes one to five years are also especially likely to host, reflecting both new families’ interest in building new holiday memories as they establish their new homes, as well as reduced pressure to travel from other family members.
Income amplifies this pattern. Among people earning more than $75,000, more than three-quarters host a holiday event. At the other end of the spectrum, lower-income families with children often stretch to host Christmas but are far less likely to take on New Year’s, underscoring how discretionary that celebration is and how central Christmas remains even when budgets are tight.
Hosts drive spending across categories
It is also important to note that targeting holiday hosts does not mean leaving holiday gift shoppers behind. Among non-hosts, nearly half are buying three or fewer gifts this year, and 12% are not planning to buy any gifts. Compare this to winter holiday hosts, where 70% are buying four or more gifts, and just 3% are planning to skip gifting. Children in the home certainly have a major influence on this, but even among child-free households, respondents that plan to host are much more likely to have a longer list of giftees. Hosts are the people buying for extended family, friends, and coworkers, not just their own households. If your Q4 dollars are aimed generically at “holiday shoppers,” you are under-weighted on the consumers who actually drive incremental volume.
Looking at where you can find high-value hosts: winter holiday hosts are significantly more likely to pay for cable and live TV packages, especially Hulu + Live TV, DirecTV, and DirecTV Stream. Hulu+Live TV aligns with the fact that they are more likely to be in the Disney+ universe as a whole. Fifty-three percent have watched Disney+ in the last 30 days, versus 36% of non-hosts: and they are more engaged with sports, with 40% of hosts saying they watch sports regularly versus 30% of non-hosts. This means that during hosting, guests that may not be as engaged in these platforms other times during the year are re-exposed as well.
Retail behavior tells a similar story. When asked where they plan to buy gifts, winter holiday hosts are significantly more likely than non-hosts to plan on searching for gifts at nearly all stores covered, reflecting the higher number of gift-load. But the one big exception is Amazon, where hosts and non-hosts are equally likely to buy gifts. Amazon has become table stakes: a baseline utility for everyone, not a differentiator for reaching high-value hosts.
Another important opportunity for these hosts is online grocery. Hosts are 61% more likely to have shopped at Instacart in the last 6 months and are significantly more likely to have shopped through a grocery store’s website. Do not miss the retail media network opportunity to reach a family through a holiday host.
Hosting holiday gatherings is a way that households are able to share their joy, from creating memories for the youngest in the family, sharing gifts with family and friends, and stocking the shelf for a holiday feast or game day snack. Make room for this important audience in your media strategy this winter.
Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform.
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The opinions expressed here are the author's views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage.org/MyersBizNet.