40 percent of American tablet and smartphone owners is a secondscreener
In a recent study researchfirm Nielsen found for the US population that the amount of smartphone users and tablet-owners that are multitaskting while watching tv is rising. Roughly 40 percent of tablet and smartphone owners in the U.S. used their devices daily while watching TV, while only 14 percent of eReader owners said they watched TV while using their device every day. What are they doing, while watching tv? They are checking email: the top activity for both men and women during television programming and commercial breaks. In addition, women reported engaging in social networking more than men, while men checked sports scores more often.
Such a nice infographic. More important and more interesting is the following quote:
“Advertisers should take note that while viewers may be splitting attention between two (or three!) screens, 19 percent of smartphone and tablet owners searched for product information and 13 percent searched for coupons or deals while the television was on.”
Right. This means…. A couple of things for you as a marketer or for you as responsible for a brand. It means, for example, that it’s kind of important to have an online presence that is suited to access on tablets and smartphones because people might search for your brand while watchting tv, seeing your ad or a brand referral that is not under your control (even more interesting, imho). It also means, probably, that you can try to set up some interaction with people searching for information about you, while they watch tv. A simple way to do this is via facebook.
The idea that people are multitaskting and are not fully focused on the tv while it’s switched on, is not new of course (I still remember the theory of media use as social action, it dates back to 1994). Watching tv can be a social action, the tv can be used as some kind of background device to avoid the silence, people eat sleep, discuss while the tv is switched on. And now there’s the connected device, the tablet and the laptop and the smartphone, that distract the eyeballs. This tells the more traditional advertisers also something they already know: that the end of advertising as we know it comes to and end. Somewhere. Sometime.
InSites Study
At InSites Consulting, we’ve also done a study about this topic. You can see the results in the SlideShare presentation of Steven van Belleghem below: