Second Screen TV – Research
07/11/2014
Picture this.
It’s been a stressful week and you’re looking forward to a night of vegging out. The telly goes on and perhaps there is an adult beverage or two nearby. It’s a scene played-out in many homes for nearly 70 years.
Over the past few years a there have been a few changes in How we watch TV.
On goes the TV set, you flip open your tablet and smart phone ready to watch. Only now you can chat with your friends about the show, play a few Walking Dead games and perhaps even buy that cute dress one of the actresses is wearing. Welcome to Second Screen TV and SocialTV. .
A couple of weeks ago Joel Rubinson, President and founder of Rubinson Partners, Inc., and CivicScience took to the reseach road to learn more about second screen viewing. The results, which they shared with the industry, TV Viewing and the “Second Screen” – What Audiences are Doing with Mobile, Tablet Devices, is a report based on the CivicScience data collection and research platform. Joel conducted the analysis and partnered in formulating the research questions.
Joel kindly agreed to answer a few questions and give us his views on the future of second screen TV and socialTV.
Diva Marketing: The Insight Report you did with CivicScience indicates that multitasking is the name of the game for 45% of respondents who acknowledged using a ‘second screen’ (smart phone, tablet or computer) while viewing traditional broadcast TV.
It was also interesting to me that 80%, were not engaged online with content related to the show.
In your opinion is this a trend and if so, where does it leave content producers in terms of advertiser value?
Joel Rubinson: Hi Toby, thank you for your question. First, let me clarify that it is 45% of everyone watching TV who multi-task so it is actually a higher percentage of those who own an internet access device and watch traditional TV.
The fact that 80% or more of multi-taskers are doing so in unrelated ways means that media might have the wrong idea about what people want to do with the device in their hands. They are more interested in passing dead time than they are in enriching the TV experience.
- Will this change? Perhaps, but media will need to offer more enticing experiences to get viewers to engage.
The value of this research we did using CivicScience’s data is understanding that the current crop of synchronized tools are not yet substantially changing viewing behaviors. Yet media and marketers desperately want it to work because it would add value to media ad inventory and impact to marketer advertising efforts. In the meantime, marketers should look for synergistic opportunities for their advertising on unrelated websites.
An exotic sounding but quite doable idea is for marketers to use real time bidding engines to bid for inventory at the precise moment that their advertising is airing on TV. Hence, if I’m seeing a commercial on Judge Judy and happen to be on a news site with RTB inventory at the moment, an advertiser could make sure I am seeing a display ad for the same brand.
Diva Marketing: In the report there was mention of “synchronized second screen experiences.” Would you please explain the concept and the opportunities as you see them?
Joel Rubinson: Synchronized experiences refers to using your internet device in a way that is related to the TV program you are watching.
This could be answering quizzes about what you think will happen to Rick in Walking Dead as he is face to face with a horde of Zombies (via an app for the show), or voting on Twitter for who should get kicked off American Idol or The Voice.
In contrast, unrelated multitasking is when I’m checking e-mail or messaging a friend on Facebook while watching a show.
I think the biggest opportunity is to build interest in real time viewing rather than recording the show on a DVR and potentially fast forwarding through the commercials. Synchronized experiences only work in real time.
Diva Marketing: How do you see the intersection of broadcast TV and online content being mutually beneficial for (1) audience/ratings growth , (2) advertisers and (3) viewer experience … or do you?
Joel Rubinson:
I believe that over the past 5-10 years all networks had to decide if online content was a threat to program ratings.
- I believe they all came to the same conclusion that online viewing does not cannibalize TV viewing appreciably and actually builds ratings indirectly by getting someone more into the show.
This has been presented by Alan Wurtzel the research lead at NBC regarding the Olympics.
Online content was mostly viewed by those who wanted to relive favorite moments and seemed to go hand in hand with more TV viewing hours, not fewer, for the Olympics. Overall, the great majority of video content is still viewed in real time on the TV even with 5-10 years of significant growth of DVR use and live streaming over the internet.
TV watching is still the 800 pound gorilla (or at least 720 pounds) but watching content online is also a reality, it is growing and all progressive media companies need to embrace it and make it work for them.
The researcher in me wants to point out that one simple payback is realizing that the dot.com parts of TV networks have the ability to better track viewer interests via online digital behaviors, yielding first party data that can result in very powerful insights and promotional targeting.
Diva Marketing: Thanks Joel! I’m off to make sure my ipad, iphone and laptop are charged and I know the Twitter handle of the show.
More About the methodology, CivicScieince, Joel Rubinson and Partners
CivicScience is the provider of the real-time polling and consumer insights platform used by Joel Rubinson in this study. The second-screen questions were added to thousands of other questions running through the CivicScience polling platform and published via hundreds of web and mobile websites, and the data from the anonymous respondents were aggregated and mined using automated data science technology.
CivicScience’s platform is used by consumer brand and media clients to quickly and deeply understand consumer sentiment and behaviors.
Joel Rubison is President and founder of Rubinson Partners, Inc. marketing and research consulting for a brave new world and a member of the faculty of NYU Stern School of Business where he teaches social media strategy. Started in 2010, Rubinson Partners, Inc. (RPI) has already helped position several clients for success in a digital age.
