Americans are in the throes of a new cultural pastime — it’s called multi-screen enjoyment — and this pastime shows no signs of losing momentum. People can’t just watch TV and talk about it the following day. With the Internet, it’s all about instantaneous commentary, response and feedback via social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Multi-screen ‘infotainment’ is becoming American’s preferred choice of leisure activity. Apparently, watching television via Direct TV bundles just isn’t enough, as 80 percent of people in a recent Deloitte survey said they multitask by using mobile devices while watching TV. That trend explodes during big TV events like the Super Bowl, Oscars, and Grammy awards shows.
The 2012 online survey, “State of the Media Democracy,” by Deloitte, also revealed that 26 percent of American consumers own a laptop, smartphone AND tablet. Of particular significance is the percentage of consumer owning tablets, which has risen 177 percent in just the last 12 months. And with mobile communication and viewing use and technology also on the rise, this trend remains constant whether consumers are at home or on the road. An April report from The NPD Group reports that a whopping 87% of people in the United States are using at least one mobile or second-screen device while watching TV.
Social Media Multitasking
The multi-screen approach to consuming content has obviously not gone unnoticed, and leading social media companies are at various stages of taking advantage of it. Twitter is leader of the pack, while Facebook is playing communications catch-up.
Twitter hash tags were featured in five times as many Super Bowl ads than Facebook mentions last January, according to Lostremote.com. The article also referred to the recent partnership announced between Nielsen Ratings Company and Twitter to create a joint rating system, and business-sponsored in-Tweet video clips via Twitter Amplify. Twitter’s TV-targeted Promoted Tweets are the latest applications which appear to be on the threshold of the long-anticipated concept of interactive television. All of these developments are a wake-up call for Facebook.
Twitter clearly got under Facebook’s skin by asserting recently that Twitter is the place that 95 percent of live TV conversations currently happen. With the almighty advertising dollar at stake, Facebook responded by rolling out its own searchable hash tags for Facebook users to share more readily identifiable interests. Approximately 88 – 100 million Americans log onto Facebook nightly, but only a third of the Facebook users post TV-related commentary. While the hash tag emphasis illustrates Facebook’s obvious effort to ramp up the engagement with social TV, Twitter has already gotten off to a significant head start. Now the race is really on.
Entertainment and Engagement
Meanwhile, as Twitter and Facebook duke it out, marketers and advertisers are already on the lookout for new ways to generate visibility and revenue, only with much of the focus being on engagement, rather than just exposure.
Sony and Nissan North America tried a new tactic with a fall 2012 campaign involving second screen usage for the Spike TV show “GT Academy.” DM News reported that, using social media channels, fans of the Gran Turismo driving game on PlayStation competed with other players in the video game. Sixteen finalists would go on “GT Academy,” which is sponsored by Nissan and features its sports cars. About a million viewers participated, with the winner getting a pro racing contract. According to Nissan, the campaign helped the car maker to deliver messaging to users on their mobile devices, to further further engage with Nissan’s brand.
Similar efforts are underway internationally. In the United Kingdom, one broadband provider used a similar second-screen strategy to get Internet viewers of a quiz show to watch its four-minute video. The result was that about 17 percent of viewers watched the entire video and more than two percent of those same viewers clicked to get additional online content.
The groundbreaking Deloitte survey continues to provoke responses from advertisers and social media providers alike. No one wants to be left in the dust when tablets are included within the top five list of devices consumers find most indispensable. The same study indicates that tablet owners are more likely to upgrade their equipment over the next year than non-owners. Add in the fact that older consumers are now forming a large part of new mobile users, with approximately 32 percent of baby boomers and 31 percent of “mature Americans” ranking tablets among their three most-valuable or favorite devices. There’s much data and advertising revenue to support their multitasking needs.
The fundamental conclusion that can be derived from all of these individual experiences and data is that infotainment and multi-tasking is not something that is cutting edge, but rather a new way of life for a large percentage of people who have embraced the technological revolution of today’s evolving world.