Initiative's Real Youth panel monitoring the media and consumer behaviour of 16- to 24-year-olds reveals youths are three times more likely to watch World Cup action online than on their mobile phones. As many as 26% of claimed to have watched World Cup 2006 matches or highlights online, compared with only 8% claiming to use mobile phones to access the same content.
Yesterday's England 1-0 victory over Ecuador, from a David Beckham free kick, had more than 1m visit a sports or gambling website on the day. The figure was the highest so far, beating the 979,188 who visited on the Saturday England played Paraguay in their opening match.
As consumers are faced with more media than ever before to interact with, from TV, to radio, press and online and interactive, it is vital for advertisers to understand which media are most appealing to consumers and which they should invest in.
Watching the World Cup online has also been received very favourably, with 69% of those who had accessed World Cup 2006 action online rated the service as good or very good.
Mobiles fared less well, with respondents six times more likely to rate the experience as "bad", compared with online.
This highlights how consumer experiences of identical content can be greatly influenced by the media they use. Mobile phones have the advantage of greater portability, but it is much easier and arguably more enjoyable to follow football online on a computer monitor than on a smaller mobile phone screen.
More and more people look set to watch content online in the future. Broadband is becoming more prevalent in the UK, particularly with technological advancements making the service even faster and cheaper. Soon enough, consumers will also be able to access the internet from any location with Wi-Fi technology.
With one quarter of the youth market in the UK already watching the World Cup online, these developments could lead to an explosion in the online audience for World Cup 2010, affording a great opportunity for advertisers to connect with consumers.
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