Brief:

• Twitter, the micro-blogging app with 328 million users, provided new data that shows how its service helps TV networks connect with young, hard-to-reach audiences, MediaPost reported. Twitter had the biggest gains in incremental reach among 18- to 24-year-olds compared with other age groups and targets, according to Nielsen data.

• Without identifying the advertiser, Twitter said a large consumer packaged goods brand ran a campaign during a major global sports event that included a Twitter “first view” promoted video ad. Nielsen found that the brand saw a 22% incremental reach with its target audience on Twitter, compared with running ads only on TV.

• Twitter provided an average of 6% incremental audience reach to TV on four cross-platform campaigns, Nielsen data show. Twitter had a 40% higher percentage of its impressions reach target audiences than did TV among the the four measured campaigns.

Insight:

Twitter’s key advantage in mobile media is its immediacy — a user can reach a global audience instantaneously with a quick hit of text and images. That makes the service enjoyable for people who like to share tweets while watching TV or seeing a live event. Digital natives, or Generation Z, are even harder to reach than millennials. The under-20 set consumed 50% less TV than Generation X and 66% less TV than Baby Boomers, according to Nielsen. That makes mobile channels more significant for reaching younger audiences.

Meanwhile, video is contrary to Twitter’s agility and the company faces challenges in growing an audience for TV-like programming. Twitter had difficulties in monetizing its short-video service Vine, which was closed in January and transformed into a camera app. And even live events last year like NFL games drew a fraction of the number of TV viewers, reportedly underwhelming sponsors. The new Nielsen data may help to convince some advertisers that Twitter expands and complements their audience reach.

Broadcasters, live sporting event organizers and other entertainment marketers are eager to get in front of younger consumers who are cutting the cord with TV. Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook and other digital platforms continue to sign new deals for live streaming and original video content. In June, TNT put the show "Claws" on Twitter to help build an audience that was hard to reach on TV.

At the same time cord-cutting is growing, mobile video viewership is surging with two-thirds of smartphone users watching video on their wireless devices every day, according to a survey by AOL Advertising. The study of digital video consumption was intended to learn what viewers want to see this year. On-the-go mobile viewers generally have short attention spans, according to a key finding. About 60% of smartphone users reported watching videos that run one minute or less every day, while only 31% said they watched video that was 20 minutes or more daily.