Exploiting the UK’s addiction to screens
Claire Spencer, Insights Director, UM London, looks at the ways to exploit the growing trend of multi-screen viewing.
The UK has become a nation of screen addicts. From laptops to smartphones to tablets, today’s consumers have always got a screen by their side. But one device does not rule them all. The average household now owns three internet enabled devices and instead of one all-encompassing super converged device leading the way, people are opting to multi-screen.
Consumers now seamlessly switch their attention to whichever screen they deem worthy at that moment in time. For the advertising industry this presents both a number of challenges and exciting opportunities.
Through our latest Screen Time study, UM London Research & Insight has discovered that 69% of laptop owners, 70% of tablet owners and 75% of smartphone owners claim to use their devices while simultaneously watching the big screen television. It has become completely normal for viewers to Tweet, Facebook, email, shop or simply browse the internet while watching their favourite shows.
At first glance this concurrent consumption can seem concerning – with all these other distractions will anyone notice traditional TV spots anymore? The answer is yes, of course they will. Econometric studies continue to prove the huge value of TV and a recent study by Thinkbox highlighted that there was no significant difference in the level of ad recognition between solus and multi-screen viewers.
In actual fact, multi-screen viewing can offer huge engagement extension opportunities. The adoption of better, faster screen-based technology has acted as a real catalyst for the rise in social media usage. Today over half of Facebook users read their newsfeeds on a daily basis and a further fifth go on to ‘like’ something.
It is the collision of these two trends that is really exciting for the advertisers. Multi-screen consumers are now interacting with traditional media content, like TV programming, within a split second.
Screen Time found that 22% of Facebook users have posted a comment about a TV programme and shows like the X-Factor are referenced in half a million tweets each week. Likewise, last year Channel 4 released data that highlighted how 12% of Million Pound Drop viewers had downloaded the game and played along at home, providing a massive extension to the franchise.
Advertisers can learn a lot from the example being set by these big media owners. If showing a hashtag on the screen during an X-Factor performance is driving millions of interactions, think of the impact it could have on a TV advert for, say, a new fashion range or a new video game release.
An interactive ad experience
The rules of engagement have evolved once again, it is now more important than ever that communications are integrated and fully aligned online. In order to maximise the potential multiplier effect and stand out from the crowd, campaigns need to be able to work in three or even four screen dimensions.
So, which brands are actually taking advantage of multi-screening? A good example of how we at UM London have tapped into this trend is a recent campaign we ran for our client Microsoft, as part of a wider campaign for Internet Explorer (IE).
The overall campaign, ‘Beauty of the Web’, was about demonstrating how amazing the IE web browser can be, and highlighting the range of experiences it opens up to consumers. A TV ad alone would never be enough to do it justice. We needed to show off exactly what the browser could do, and get people using it as they were watching the ad.
Together UM and Microsoft teamed up with the music app Shazam, and made our advert Shazam-enabled. This meant that whenever people saw the TV ad, featuring the track ‘Too Close’ by musician Alex Clare, they could use the app to discover content from the musician, including live performances and interviews which were all branded and powered by IE. The result was a hugely engaging and interactive ad experience that gave consumers the personalised content that they now demand as they watch TV with a second screen.
There’s no doubt that we’ll see more and more TV ads with an interactive element to them, as brands seek to tap into our screen addiction and reach us in each of the different places we operate online. If you want to read more about the growing multi-screening trend, you can download a copy of our Screen Time report here.