Watching television while also using a smartphone or tablet is one of the most popular leisure activities of the mobile era. The mobile industry is working hard to create mobile apps and sites that relate to what’s on TV, in order to capitalize on this behavior.
This approach is often referred to as the «second screen,» the idea being that the tablet or smartphone becomes a TV companion device, allowing for added levels of interactivity— whether on social networks or dedicated second screen apps and sites that complement on-air content.
In a new report from BI Intelligence, it is examined how second screen apps, social networks, and mobile sites will ultimately succeed in drawing significant audiences, analyzed how they will begin to see some advertising dollars, look at who second screen audiences are, explore the second screen opportunity from the broadcaster angle, and detail the opportunity represented by audience analytics and second screen commerce.
Here’s why the second screen industry will ultimately succeed:
- Usage is growing rapidly: 85% of smartphone users reported second screen-linked behavior at least once a month, over 60% reported doing it on a weekly basis, and 39% did so daily. Over 80% of 18- to 24-year-olds told Pew they used their phone while watching TV, and 60% of Americans with annual incomes above $50,000 use their phones while watching TV.
- And mass acceptance isn’t even necessary: All that matters is that a significant minority of viewers develop this habit (especially if they are highly engaged viewers). In the U.S. alone, TV ad spending was $18.4 billion in the third quarter of last year, a $74 billion annual run rate. If mobile can carve out even a small share of that pile of dollars via second screen channels, it would boost the mobile industry tremendously.
- Second screen isn’t really a new activity: It’s a natural update to the old ways of engaging with TV, like the old office water cooler conversations about last night’s football game or popular TV drama. Moreover, second screen-type behaviors were already popular on desktops and laptops, before mobile came along and made it a lot easier to participate.
- Second screen apps and sites are bridges: They bring together the powerful but increasingly fragmented world of television media, and the fast-growing but still undeveloped digital realm. For TV-centric advertisers and content producers, second screen provides a channel through which to test out digital strategies while still remaining tied to familiar territory.
So, if you are not taking the second screen into consideration in your marketing strategies, you are missing the point. With the appearance of each new device, the experts have weighed in on what it will mean for the future of advertising. But the truth is we won’t build the future of advertising device by device. We need to learn to look at these devices as a way of understanding the context in which consumers are looking for information. Real people use these newest devices — phones, tablets, «phablets», touch-screen laptops and Web-enabled TVs — to connect with each other, shop, navigate the world, watch videos, play games, and take pictures. It’s how, when, and why people use their devices we should be paying attention to and less so the devices themselves.
Part of the reason for this is that we can no longer deduce a customer’s context purely by the device she is using. We used to assume that your mobile meant you were on the go, your tablet meant you were at home on the sofa, and your desktop meant you were at work, but this is no longer accurate. These devices are now bleeding into new realms and your behavior is very different depending on the context in which you’re using the device. Think about your own life. You might email on your laptop in front of the TV and simultaneously use your tablet to look up a takeout menu, or listen to music.
Today, most people constantly switch between devices in order to stay connected. And despite advertisers’ initial concerns, consumer eyeballs are not necessarily being «lost» from one screen to another. Rather than splitting a finite number of hours across a greater number of screens, consumers are often using multiple screens simultaneously. This is the new multiscreen world.
And we’re starting to see remarkable data suggesting just how quickly the multiscreen world is taking hold with consumers. For example, let’s look at the Holy Grail of traditional TV advertising, the Super Bowl. Traditional Super Bowl campaigns focused a huge amount of brand energy on one, expensive slot of air time. Now, even if people leave the living room to grab chips and soda from the kitchen during the breaks, it doesn’t mean they’ll miss your ad. Super Bowl advertisers can bank on an extended online audience to justify and add value to their TV buys. This year, Super Bowl ads on YouTube were watched more than 76 million times before game day and we saw a total of 200 million views on 100 video ads and teasers tied to the Super Bowl.
The multiscreen world creates opportunities for marketers by helping them reach people in the right context with the right message on any device. For example, a pizza restaurant wants to show one ad to someone searching for pizza at noon downtown on their smartphone (click-to-call and restaurant locator), and a different ad to someone searching for pizza at 9pm on their laptop or tablet at home (link to online order form or menu). Context-aware ads like this are more likely to get a positive response because they help people achieve something quickly and simply so they can get on with life.
Advertisers should focus their investments on the contexts they care about. Context-aware ads create a connection, they entertain, inspire and influence. They don’t feel like an intrusion because they provide a great experience that’s based on the user’s context. So rather than focus solely on the device as the centerpiece of your next campaign, go a level or two deeper to examine the context. That’s where the opportunities lie in today’s multiscreen world.
