Using a methodology that looks at the motivations behind online behaviour (self –expression
/ entertainment / information gathering / transacting) matched against a ‘normal’ benchmark
created by looking at the quality of digital infrastructure ( penetration and quality of
connection) available in the country, Mindshare’s research has revealed:

The US is among the least motivated (31st) for using digital media for self-expression,
being beaten by neighbour Canada at 17th. Instead, things traditionally associated with selfexpression (e.g. blogging) are driven by a desire to be entertained.

South Korea, one of the most advanced digital nations in the world, lays only 23 rd
globally when it comes to being motivated to search for information, whilst scoring highly on
all other motivations.

The UK is below ‘normal’ in its motivation to use digital communications across the
four areas (17th) when compared to the quality of its infrastructure, as are the USA (20 th) and
Japan (28th)

The BRIC countries are all above ‘normal’ in their use of digital communications
across the four motivational areas when compared to the quality of their infrastructure (Brazil
14th, Russia 12th, India 5th, China 1st)

Chile is the most advanced (ahead of ‘normal’) Latin American country (11th) beating
Brazil (14th), Venezuela (18th), Colombia (19th), Mexico (21st), Peru (26th) and Argentina (29th)

Portugal is the most advanced European country (2 nd), beating Sweden (6th), Spain
(9th), Poland (10th), Germany (13th) and the UK (17th)
Of the 33 countries, only 14 were above ‘normal’ in their use of digital communications across the four
motivation areas when compared to the quality of their infrastructure – leaving the rest, which includes
the UK, US, Australia and Japan lagging behind ‘normal’.
Norm Johnston, Global Digital Leader at Mindshare said: ‘This new research is a fresh way of looking
at online national audiences and shows the importance of understanding that every group is
motivated by different reasons when they go online – and when in these different ‘modes’ they need
to be communicated with in bespoke ways, making the use of Adaptive Marketing techniques vital.
The research also challenges our pre-conceptions; for example the USA is the world’s richest nation,
but with people who are less motivated to go online for transaction (26th) than almost every other
nation on the planet!”
COUNTRY BY COUNTRY LIST (A-Z)
ARGENTINIA
Argentina takes 29th place in league table, scoring highest for online transactions.
Argentina was found to be the lowest scoring Latin American country in the study, coming 29 th overall
in the league table. Low scores of 32nd place for online entertainment and 27th for information seeking
pulled the country down. Average positions of 15th place for self-expression and 14th for transactional
behaviour protected Argentina from the bottom slot.
AUSTRALIA
Australians are less motivated to go online for reasons of self-expression, instead favouring
a search for entertainment.
Australia takes 22nd place on the global league table, coming below average for self-expression and
transaction, but scoring reasonably for entertainment. Information seeking yields an average score of
17th place in the table, whilst entertainment is 11th compared to other countries.
BELGIUM
Belgium takes 23rd place in league table, but scores highly for self-expression.
Belgium sits near the bottom of the league table in 23rd place, but beats other European nations such
as Switzerland and Italy. The overall Belgian score is pulled up by a high score for self-expression,
but ranks lowly for transactional behaviours such as online shopping.
BRAZIL
Brazilians do well, but lag behind for entertainment.
Brazil sits in 14th place globally, behind only Chile in the Latin American market. The country scored
very highly for self-expression, in fourth place globally, but sat nearer to the bottom of the table for
entertainment. Transactional and information seeking use of the internet saw Brazilians in average
spots of 16 and 14 respectively.
CANADA
Canada ahead of USA for online behaviour, but sits around middle place globally.
Canada marginally beat neighbours in the USA, taking 16th place in the global league table. The
people of Canada sat very near to the middle of the tables for each category, including the use of the
Internet for self-expression, entertainment, information seeking and transactions. Conversely, the
USA saw more extreme usage, with self-expression and transactional behaviours lagging well behind
Canada. The findings come as Canadian officials have backed away from plans to trial online voting
in pending elections.
CHILE
Chileans lead Latin America in online use driven by key motivations, Chile a leader in selfexpression.
Chile saw extremes of behaviour in the research, taking second place for the use of the web for selfexpression, but almost last place in the table for information
CHINA
Chinese citizens are the most highly motivated online users in the world.
China came first for transactional use of the web and communication/self-expression, while faring in
the top third for information and around average for entertainment motivators.
COLOMBIA
Colombian online behaviour highly motivated by being transactional, least so for
entertainment.
Colombia sits in the bottom half of overall league table in 19th place for digital normalness. Highest
performing sector is transactional behaviour, such as online shopping, whilst self-expression,
entertainment and information are all in the lower half. The findings come as pressure increases for
the government to tax online sales in the same way brick and mortar store sales are.
GERMANY
Germany sits just above average in the global league table, but lags behind in
entertainment.
Germany is in 13th place overall, with scores between 10-12 for transactional, information seeking and
self-expressional usage of the internet, but the country’s score is pulled down by its ranking for
entertainment.
HUNGARY
Hungary takes penultimate place in table of online motivational behaviour, scoring highest
for information seeking.
Hungary came in last position for self-expression, 23rd place for online entertainment and 31st place
for transactional behaviours such as online shopping. The Hungarians ranked highest for information
seeking, taking 15th place. Google recently signalled an increasing interest in Hungary by launching
availability of Street View in the country.
INDIA
India takes fifth place in online motivations study.
India leads the way with entertainment and information gathering online, but lags behind in the areas
of motivation to transact and self-express.
INDONESIA
Indonesia takes 25th place in the global league table, scoring poorly for motivation to seek
information.
Indonesia takes 25th place in global league table, with average scores of 14th place for self-expression
and 13th place for transactional behaviour. Below average behaviour in online entertainment and
information seeking at 21st and 29th place respectively pulled Indonesia’s score down. The
Indonesian Internet Service Providers’ Association (APJII) says there are 63 million Internet users in
Indonesia today, about a quarter of the nation’s population.
ITALY
Italy scores poorly for being motivated by all elements of online behaviour except for
information seeking.
Italy sits near the bottom of the table in 27th position, scoring very low scores for self-expression in
30th place and transactional behaviour in last place. Starkly, however, Italy came second globally for
information seeking and scored a reasonable 12th place for online entertainment.
JAPAN
Japan surprises by placing last amongst Asian nations.
Japan took 28th place in the online behaviour study, showing that despite a very good infrastructure
network and position as a technological world-leader, the motivations of Japanese users remains less
clear. Japan ranked 26th for self-expression, 31st for entertainment and 29th for transactional behaviour
such as online shopping, in a study which predicted online behaviours in comparison to technology
infrastructure. Japan scored reasonably highly for information seeking in 11th place.
MALAYSIA
Malaysians lags behind in being motivated by transactional use of the Internet.
Malaysia sits near the middle of the global league table, with relatively high scores for entertainment
and self-expression use of the Internet weighed down by a very low score for transactional usage.
Malaysians’ online information seeking activity was slightly above average.
MEXICO
Mexico sits in bottom third of global league table, but scores well for self-expression and
transactional behaviour.
Mexico takes 21st place in the global league, scoring poorly for being motivated by entertainment and
information seeking in 26th and 22nd place respectively. Self-expression scored a credible 13th place
and transactional behaviour such as online shopping sits in 15th place. Music streaming firm Spotify
recently launched its service in Mexico, indicating a positive appetite towards digital services in the
country.
THE NETHERLANDS
The Netherlands lags behind in all areas of online motivation except self-expression.
The Netherlands took 31st place on the global league table, with rankings of 29th for entertainment,
30th for online information seeking and 23rd for transactional behaviour. The Dutch scored highest for
self-expression, taking 18th place.
PERU
Peru sits near bottom of global league table in 26th place.
Peru scored well below average in all areas including self-expression, entertainment, information
seeking and transactional behaviour. Entertainment was the highest scoring category for Peru in 19th
place.
THE PHILIPPINES
The Philippines ranks highly for being motivated by information seeking and entertainment
behaviour.
People in the Philippines show high levels of behaviour online when seeking information or
entertainment, in stark contrast to self-expression and transactions. Mindshare’s research found that
those in the Philippines sit very near to the top for the former and very close to the bottom of the
league table for the latter.
POLAND
Poland leads Eastern Europe for being motivated to go online for most reasons, but lags
behind with self-expression.
Poland was placed in 10th rank globally, with high scores for being motivated by transaction and
entertainment pushing the country above other Eastern European neighbours. The transactional side
of the research will come as no surprise to Polish e-commerce retailers, as research by web site
Nokaut.pl found that online shopping in Poland increased by 23-25 per cent in 2012. Information
seeking online in Poland fared averagely, taking 16th place.
PORTUGAL
Portuguese citizens are the most highly motivated online users in Europe.
Portugal comes top when looking at those nations motivated to go online to use digital media to
search for information and scored highly for online usage driven by both self-expression and
transaction. Overall Portugal came second when compared to all countries in the report.
RUSSIA
Russians are most motivated to go online for entertainment, but sit near bottom for being
motivated to seek information.
Russia was second for being motivated to seek entertainment online, despite increasing restrictions
from Russia’s Internet Bill. At the other end of the scale, Russia came 31 st for being motivated by the
use of the internet to find information. Russian behaviours were also analysed for transactions and
self-expression, which saw average positions of 18th and 24th respectively.
SINGAPORE
Singapore citizens are within the top three most motivated online in the world.
The research found that those in Singapore are not highly motivated by the use of the internet for
seeking information, instead favouring it for communication/self-expression, entertainment and
transactional reasons. Motivation to seek out entertainment sees Singapore ranked top globally.
SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa took 30th place in the global league table.
South Africa came between 22nd and 29th place in each category, scoring lowest for being motivated
by self-expression. The highest score of 22nd place was for online entertainment. Smartphone based
internet access has seen tremendous growth in recent years due to the comparable savings to be
made when compared to fixed line internet access.
SOUTH KOREAN
South Koreans rank highly for being motivated by transactional use of the internet.
South Korea ranks highly for motivation by transaction and self-expression behaviour, but very lowly
for information seeking.
SPAIN
Spain ranks highly for being motivated to seek information and entertainment online.
The Spanish rank highly when seeking information or entertainment online, but poorly for being
motivated to transact, Mindshare’s recent study found. The research saw Spain sit in a slightly above
average 11th place for self-expression.
SWEDEN
Sweden is the second most motivated nation online in Europe.
Swedes lead the way for being motivated by entertainment and information gathering online, but lag
behind in motivation to transact and self-express with average ratings.
SWITZERLAND
Switzerland takes 24th place in global league table, but scored higher for being motivated by
self-expression and information seeking.
The Swiss rank well for being motivated by self-expression, taking 10th place for this, and also 10th for
information seeking. However, the transactional side of the web pulls Switzerland down the table,
having ranked 27th for being motivated by this category. Swiss also behave below expected levels
with regards to entertainment online.
THAILAND
Thailand takes fourth place for being most motivated online.
Thai citizens come second only to the Chinese in their motivation for transactional use of the web, but
lag behind in the use of the internet for information purposes. Thailand also saw an above average
score for being motivated by communication / self-expression and an around average score for use of
the internet for entertainment.
UK
The UK stiff upper lip reduced the country’s score for self-expression, but the motivation for
transactional usage sits in the top five world-wide.
The UK sat near the middle of the league table, taking 17th place on average. While people in the UK
scored highly for being motivated to use the Internet for entertainment and transactional behaviour
such as online shopping, motivation for usage for self-expression and information seeking was closer
to the bottom of the table with 28th and 26th place respectively. The findings will back up recent tron
the high street, which have seen online channels looking much more optimistic than traditional bricks
and mortar retail.
UNITED STATES
USA lags slightly behind Canada, but ahead of Mexico.
The USA took 20th place on the global league table, with low scores for being motivated by selfexpression and transactional behaviour such as online shopping. Reasonably high scores in
entertainment and information seeking helped keep the USA out of the bottom ten. The findings
related to transactional behaviour will be likely to back up an ongoing desire to simplify online
shopping platforms to service multiple states, with varying shipping conditions and taxes all providing
a headache for online brands.
VENEZUELA
Venezuelan are motivated to use online media for information seeking but lag behind in
other areas.
Venezuela came near the top of the league table in sixth place for usage of the Internet motivated by
information seeking, but lagged behind with self-expression, entertainment and transactional
behaviour. Overall, Venezuela was in 18th place of 33 countries, with the information seeking score
helping to pull it up the table slightly