With the summer season in full swing across the US, many travel brands are beefing up their vacation campaigns. Non-travel brands, though, may be thinking of cutting back on online campaigns until more of the workforce are back at their desks. New data from Replicon, about workplace productivity, may lessen those cutbacks.
According to new data from Replicon about one-third (31%) of US workers are more likely to use vacation time through August than any other time of year. Summer also holds the second-highest ‘sick day’ of the year – the Tuesday following Memorial Day – which means advertisers aren’t necessarily connecting with consumers at work. But, they are connecting, because whether at work or home, consumers are still going online to book travel, check email or visit social networks. They aren’t cutting off online communication just because of the summer.
Replicon’s data shows:
- 52% of US workers take vacation time during the summer months
- Managers take off more time during the summer season than their underlings
- Monday is more likely to find workers calling in sick than Fridays
- Both Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends are likely to become 4-day weekends, rather than 3-day
And one more reason to keep online campaigns steady or even increase: more and more workers are going freelance, which means they connect from home or mobile locations more than business locations.
Data from a new Elance survey finds that freelance work is catching the eye of more and more consumers. While most freelancers are under age 50 (26% are Millenials and 42% Gen X), a growing segment of the older workforce is going freelance. Many cite control over schedules as one of the factors for moving out of an office, but one-third say they decided to freelance so that they could focus on projects of their choosing. The Freelance Union estimates that about 30% of the US workforce is now freelance.
Source: BizReport
