Today, we don’t have to wait until we get to the office or call a friend to discuss what happened during last night’s game. Our social circles are just an arm’s length away on Smartphone, Twitter or Facebook. The average viewer is sitting in front of the TV with a smartphone or tablet on their lap, participating in the conversation in real-time. This practice, called “omniscreening” is on the rise: According to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), 66% of people use at least one other device while watching TV.
With widespread smartphone ownership and growing tablet ownership in the U.S., many consumers are tuned in to their second screen as much as the first one. Advertisers have been capitalizing on the concept of the second screen ever since Audi was the first company to use a hashtag in their 2011 Super Bowl commercial. What was then seen as groundbreaking is now commonplace.
Traditionally, the tablet was seen as complementary to the television. But now, the line is blurred. During the 2012 presidential debate, Twitter was abuzz, sending 6.5 million tweets over the 90-minute period (more than 72,000 tweets in a second). When Jay-Z, Kanye West, Frank Ocean and The Dream won best rap collaboration at the 2014 Grammys, users were sending 116,400 tweets a minute. The second screen is not something to take lightly.
According to the 2013 ANA/Nielsen Survey:
- By 2016, 46% of advertisers expect integrated, multi-screen campaigns to take up 50% or more of their media spending
- 82% of respondents ranked traditional TV as “Somewhat” or “Very Important,” while 86% ranked mobile phones the same way
- By 2016, most respondents expect the second screen to eclipse traditional television.
Industry experts seem to think that ‘second screens’ — tablets, smartphones, computers— will become more important than the ‘first screen,’ or traditional TV.
Only time will tell how the relationship between viewers and screens will evolve, but one thing is certainly clear now: “It is getting much harder to define which one is actually the second screen.”
[Curated content based on excerpts from posts, blogs, media articles, and sponsored research]