10/29/2014
The New Multi-Screen Consumer
Katie Rotella
The road to consumer purchase decisions was never a straightaway; it was influenced through multiple (traditional) advertising channels—print, TV, radio, word-of-mouth, etc. But today’s consumer is not only taking detours on his way to buy, he’s downright parking at times to change vehicles. The advent of mobile devices (laptops, smartphones and tablets) into our lives has shifted the way we get our content and entertainment, the way we communicate with one another, and, yes, how we make a decision to purchase. It’s called multi-screening and this shift from evening primetime to “always-on” screentime means businesses are re-evaluating their mobile marketing strategy and their overall approach to integrated marketing.
How much screentime are we talking? Well, as a mother of three budding teenagers, I can tell you screentime accumulation is a point of contention in our household. The constant battle over who has what phone and who had more time
on this device over that TV is a daily battle. So when I read the stat from Millward Brown’s “AdReaction 2014” report that multi-screen users accumulate seven hours of screen media per day
in a five-hour period, I wasn’t completely surprised (my kids can drain a battery like nobody’s
business).
My search into multi-screen living and shopping confirmed what I’d observed in my own home: The new consumer is using every bit of technology at his command to make an informed decision.
As smartphones climb to 70% market penetration this year and tablet usage approaches 50%, mobile content searches and on-the-go productivity cannot be ignored. Couple that with the phenomenon of both sequential and simultaneous device screening and consumers are willingly bombarded with content and messaging from all angles.
Sequential usage is a mode of multi-screening in which a user moves between devices to complete a certain task. For instance, Zach is watching TV and sees a car commercial. It includes a company website or social hashtag. This piques his interest and he wants to learn more, so he picks up his smartphone to get more details. He watches a mobile video and shares a link and comments on Facebook to his pals. His television program comes back on, and if he’s still interested, by the next commercial break he’s checking ratings and reviews on his laptop. Delving deeper he compares prices and model features. Finally, he picks up his smartphone again to geo-locate the nearest dealer and schedule a test drive for that weekend.
Simultaneous multi-screening is using more than one device at the same time for either a related or unrelated activity. According to Microsoft, 7 out of 10 consumers use a second device while watching TV. Take Jenny, who watches her favorite dancing reality TV show and also follows real-time commentary on Twitter during the program. Or maybe while she’s hosting rental movie night, her friend swears the lead actor was also in a chewing gum commercial. Jenny disagrees, so she looks it up on her tablet at a movie database site for his filmography. And if any of her television time is less-than-stellar, Jenny might get in a quick game of Candy Crush or shop retail stores online to fill time.
Sound familiar? Or is all this foreign to you? Is it multi-tasking or just keeping busy? Either way, big-time companies are tailoring their marketing strategies across all of these platforms—TV, online, mobile—through integrated campaigns, with the understanding that Zach and Jenny want a different user experience from each of their preferred screentimes. Mobile media investment levels are forecast to grow rapidly to fill the gap that currently exists between actual time spent on mobile devices and current mobile marketing spending ($19.8 billion in the U.S.).
It’s easy to take a defensive view that the multi-screen consumer results in a “lack of attention” for your products and services. But I encourage you to see multi-screening proactively and seek out ways to incorporate traditional media with mobile experiences and online cross-platform awareness.
Begin by telling a story—but not the whole story. Tease. Think about entertaining first and informing second. Then use simple and clear messages that transition from mobile video to a deeper, interactive layer online that the multi-screen consumer will find engaging and worthy of his or her screentime.
GT
Katie Rotella is the Public Relations and Web Content Manager for Ball Horticultural Company. She sheepishly admits to an IMDB addiction and freaks out when her cell phone loses charge.