Statistics

Millward Brown is one of the world's top 10 consumer market research organizations with wholly owned operating companies in more than 40 countries. With over 30 years of empirical learning, Millward Brown has built its business on measuring consumers' awareness, attitudes, and response to brands and advertising. We are a recognized innovator of global tracking studies.

Millward Brown has been a pioneer in conducting online research, transitioning to online methods in the United States and United Kingdom as early as 1995. In the last few years, our ability to routinely conduct global online research for Fortune 500 clients has grown dramatically. We are now able to field custom online studies in a growing number of markets around the globe, including most of the world's largest economies.

The goal of this proprietary study commissioned by Adobe Systems Incorporated is to track and compare plug-in technology used to view content on the web. The survey presents respondents with several pages, each with a graphic image in a different media file format, and asks respondents to indicate whether they can see each image. Depending on which images the respondent is able to see, we are able to identify which version of the plug-in technologies they have installed on their computer.

This study is conducted on a quarterly basis in the following eight countries:

The study is conducted in several other countries including mainland China, South Korea, Russia, India, and Taiwan every other quarter.

All surveys are conducted in-language in each market. Only an American English version is fielded in Canada. Based on data from the Internet World Stats website, the surveyed countries collectively represent 73% of the world's Internet users (not households) as of September 2009.

Research is conducted in each country using Lightspeed Research, a global partner supplier for Millward Brown. Both Millward Brown and Lightspeed are part of WPP's Kantar Group marketing research family of companies. Lightspeed Research is a leading provider of global online market research conducted over the Internet using proprietary U.S. and international panels.

Panelists are sent an email directing them to Lightspeed's survey site via a link. Incentives to complete each survey are provided as Lightspeed points, which all Lightspeed panelists receive for each survey completed according to survey length and complexity. This tracking study is considered a basic, short survey.

Respondents must be adults age 18 or older and have access to an Internet-connected computer.

The majority of respondents answer from their home computer; however, answers from respondents using a work computer are not excluded. A question is included in the survey to track whether the respondent is answering on a home computer or a work computer.

The following details the age and gender quotas employed per country to get samples representative of the Internet-connected population in each country by age and gender.

These allocations are based on a reconciliation of reported statistics for each country from a variety of sources including eMarketers, comScore Media Metrix, Market Foundation, and Lightspeed's own data on their panel compositions as well as Millward Brown's own online international research experience.

All margins of error are calculated at the 95% confidence level.

A note on representation — weighting schema

Reported worldwide and regional figures are based on a weighting scheme that accounts for both Internet penetration and population density. The total number of Internet users per country has been reflected as a percentage of the study's total online universe (composed of all the surveyed countries). The weights ascribed based on this figure are not straight Internet penetration; for example, while the U.S. and the U.K. share broadly similar levels of Internet penetration, this weighting scheme assigns a heavier weight to the U.S. than to the U.K. in the reported figures, due to the larger population size in the U.S.

The reported worldwide figures incorporate all markets covered to date. The mature market figures are based on the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The weightings employed for the mature market figures have been amended to include only this set of countries. The emerging market figures are based on data collected from South Korea, China, Russia, India, and Taiwan, with weights adjusted accordingly.

The weighting scheme will be reviewed for each wave, the respective weight of each country determined by the total Internet user figure quoted on the Internet World Stats website. Worldwide and regional figures are representative to the extent that the data is representative of each of the countries surveyed. That data is representative according to the reported sample sizes and corresponding margins of errors in each country as described above.

Lightspeed Research is a leading provider of global online market research conducted over the Internet using proprietary U.S. and international panels. Lightspeed uses advanced web technology and back-end databases to manage the registration of panelists' views and attitudes.

Note on Lightspeed panelist recruitment

Lightspeed maintains rigorous standards about who qualifies to become a member of its panels. The firm verifies the identity and demographic information of respondents through a unique recruiting structure. Further, each panelist chooses a unique password when he or she registers. In addition, Lightspeed asks each prospective panelist to complete an extensive background questionnaire.

Panelists are recruited from multiple sources such as in-person interviews, web partners, and banner ads, and 100% have opted in to participate. While all Lightspeed panelists have completed registration data consisting of 14 demographic variables, Lightspeed takes an extra step to revalidate this information.

GMI offers an integrated platform of powerful online market research tools that includes online survey software, online panel management capabilities, web survey hosting, and survey programming services. With offices in 17 countries on 6 continents and a consumer panel of 5.5 million people in more than 200 countries, GMI is a strategic partner for international online research for Lightspeed and Millward Brown.

Note on GMI panel recruitment and composition

GMI panels consist of the following: