Hi everyone. Chris Prendergast here, partner and Chief Operations Officer at Click Rain Inc. We recently completed and unveiled our 2026 Digital State of the Midwest, the massive survey where we uncover the digital impact on people's lives in our five-state region. This was our biggest survey, yet we got the most questions, the most insights, and in fact, it was also our third survey, meaning we started to see some very interesting trends begin to emerge.
The first and biggest trend had to do with the video. Now, the rise in video I think is probably expected, but the extent to which we saw was amazing. In fact, the number of people who consume videos daily increased across all demographics, across all platforms. Those who watch YouTube videos every day or multiple times a week increased by 35% from our first survey. Those watching streaming TV or streaming video increased by 38%. And in fact, those watching social videos on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, that was a rise of over 70% from our first survey. And it's not just the frequency of watching videos, it's also the amount of time. The average adult, under the age of 35 in the Midwest is now watching three-and-a-half hours of video on their mobile device every day. That's across streaming platforms, across social, across YouTube, three-and-a-half hours on average, seven days a week on a mobile device. Not even counting TV, not even counting desktops and laptops. And that's not all. 17% of adults under 35 in the Midwest are watching seven hours of video on a mobile device every single day of their week, every day of their lives. That was more than I expected, maybe more than you expected, but you're watching a video right now, so who knows? The takeaway from all this is that we should all be investing more in video. If you're not doing video, whatever your business is, whatever your marketing strategy is, if you're not doing it, now is the time to start. And if you are doing it, 2026 is the time to increase that spend, increase that focus, increase that attention, because whoever your audience is, they're increasing their attention on video right now.
The second big takeaway from our survey had to do with search and people's changing behaviors with search engines. Now, if you're like me, Google may be a big part of your daily life, of your work life. So you may be surprised to learn that in the Midwest, people's use of search engines has actually declined since our last survey. Now, what are they doing instead? Are people searching less or just using search engines less? In fact, social search is on the rise. The TikTok generation especially is increasingly likely to go to TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, other social platforms to search for products, services, maybe even your business, and that's not all. You may have also guessed that the rise in AI has contributed to this as well. So nearly half of all adults in the Midwest have said that ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, these AI platforms have started to replace some of their search behavior taking away from traditional search engines. And in fact, 31% of adults in the Midwest say that they use ChatGPT regularly. So as this landscape changes, maybe your strategy needs to change as well. So while SEO isn't going away , it's changing. SEO may also include social search. It may include AI search. So make sure your strategy is ready for that.
The third takeaway from the 2026 Digital State of the Midwest had to do with the changing advertising landscape. What we learned is that across every ad platform, across every channel, people's attention was decreasing, except for three. There were three channels that saw an increase in people's attention from our last survey: billboards, streaming television, and video ads. Remember how I said video is important? In fact, compared to four years ago, people are remembering and paying attention to video ads 40% more. Now, that increase means that video should be a part of your advertising plan as well as your content plan in 2026.
We learned so much in this study, we couldn't contain it all in this one video. In fact, we looked at and analyzed over 617,000 data points, so there's a lot more to say. If you want to get our full report, all of our insights, everything we learned from the Digital State of the Midwest, go to our Trendigital website and download the report today. Because the world is changing, the Midwest is changing, and with these trends, you're gonna be on top of it for your marketing. Thank you.
