January 29, 2015
Is the second screen e-commerce’s secret weapon?
While "second screens" — smartphones and tablets — being used by coach potatoes are often feared by marketers as a way for consumers to avoid television advertising, a university study has found a strong correlation to online purchases. Multi-tasking web surfers often visit a product’s website during or after a TV ad and subsequently make a purchase.
Researchers at Cornell, Harvard and the University of California, San Diego tracked traffic to dating sites, travel sites, telecom companies, retailers (including Amazon, J.C. Penney and Overstock.com), and a trio of pizza chains. Nearly 1,300 TV ads were screened as well as online visits by 100,000 web surfers to 20 websites during commercial breaks.
"We found a significant number of multi taskers being prompted by TV ads, then searching or going directly to the product’s website, frequently before the TV show resumed," said Jura Liaukonyte, an assistant professor in Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, in a statement.
The study, "Television Advertising and Online Shopping," being published in the journal, Marketing Science, studied four types of ads:
- "Action-focus" ads that provide a limited-time offer or deal to encourage specific action;
- "Information-focus" ads that explain the product, price and brand information to help viewers evaluate an offering;
- "Emotion-focus" ads using creative stories, warmth and humor to attract attention and engage viewers;
- "Imagery-focus" ads that provide sensory stimulation, including evocative visual imagery.
Action-focus tactics were found to increase direct traffic to the website and related purchases. Information-focus and emotion-focus elements reduce traffic to the website but increase the number of visitors that purchase, which researchers attributed to the increased "efficiency of consumer search."
The only negative correlation came from imagery-focused ad content, which reduces direct traffic to the website, "perhaps because it discourages consumers from diverting their attention away from the television."
In conclusion, the researchers wrote, "Brand managers have to deal with two effects of media multi tasking. On one hand, it may divert consumer attention away from advertising. On the other hand, handheld devices may enable a more immediate and measurable response to traditional advertising."
A new survey by Soasta, a performance analytics firm, analyzed mobile app usage by smartphone/tablet owners expected during the Super Bowl. One-third (32 percent) plan to use social media apps like Facebook and Twitter, 20 percent sports apps like ESPN and Sports Illustrated, and 19 percent games such as Candy Crush Saga and Trivia Crack. Apps for food delivery rate nine percent and apps for buying sports memorabilia or apparel, six percent.
- Researchers show which TV ads are likely to make viewers buy online – Cornell
- Television Advertising and Online Shopping – Harvard Business School
- Study shows how to open wallets of Web-surfing TV watchers – Cornell Chronicle
- SOASTA Super Bowl Survey: Facebook, Twitter to Dominate Second Screens During Super Bowl – SOASTA/Business Wire
BrainTrust
Recent Discussions
Discussion Questions
Do you see the “second screen” increasing or decreasing the effectiveness of television advertising? Will ad approaches have to be tweaked for the increased use of smartphones and tablets while television watching?
Poll
The short answer is, “it depends.” QVC is one company that uses both screens to its advantage. You can watch on TV and follow along on your mobile device. Ditto Project Runway. You can synchronize and buy things that are being sold.
I’ve long wondered when TV would become an actual selling channel. Perhaps for certain shows, the solution really is synchronized selling.
But to try and retain customers’ attention for ads? Good luck!
if you think long-term, TV ads are going to be viewed less and less as people shift to watching internet shows, where “deleting” the ads is becoming easier and easier. Meanwhile the poor consumer doesn’t stand a chance, surrounded on all fronts.
Omni-channel is not just how and where consumers shop, it is also how they consume everything, including media and advertising.
This is one of the best studies I’ve seen in correlating the impact of traditional TV media with web surfing and purchases.
But—and this is the elephant in the room not mentioned—fewer people are watching traditional programs on their TVs. Consumers are watching more streaming media and more on their mobile devices.
Marketers will have to do more than “tweak” ads, they need to rethink how to deliver and integrate them for an omni-channel media consumer.
As far back as the ’90s I was involved with experiments using green screen technologies for product placement in episodic television programming. At the time, the technology wouldn’t support a completely seamless integration. But it is becoming déjà vu all over again. We’re starting to see a single-brand sponsorship of programming not unlike the soap operas of the ’50s and ’60s. Brands like Red Bull are already creating content that is being viewed on all screens: TV, mobile and online.
The traditional television spot advertisement business model will simply not be sustainable in the second screen world.
Media companies and their research providers (Innerscope, for example) are on the case. Integrating behavioral, non-conscious and traditional research gets at how consumers are using multiple screens for content and communication (their own and that of advertisers). Accordingly media decisions can be made that up the odds for viewer engagement with advertising and content.
Here’s a Turner Broadcasting testimonial about just that and a link to the quoted research. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a consultant to Innerscope.
“We are using Innerscope Research to develop second screen interactions that connect emotionally and create the best multi-screen viewing experience across Turner programming.” —Jack Wakshlag, chief research officer, Turner Broadcasting.
Yes ads have to be tweaked to take advantage of the second screen, at least for the demographics that don’t go anywhere without that second screen. My kitchen research of my “friends” definitely shows a trend that if they see something on TV that piques their interest they then use their second screen to quickly research and or buy. At the very least some of them put it into their notes for later. Nothing like a reminder for an impulse buy!
I think what we are seeing is the power of omni-channel that is forcing any marketer to be multi-modal. Traditional TV has been diluted because of the proliferation of the number of channels and devices. The whole ad strategy for brands now needs to be changed to an engagement strategy since brands can’t easily push messages one way now without having to deal with the real time feedback through things like social media.
Wife and I, both comparative Luddites, have searched for and bought things on iPad and iPhone while watching TV ads. The only thing that could hurt that, for us at least, is that we’ve started recording all shows and then started to watch them 15 to 20 minutes into them so we can zap all the ads. On busy Sundays, I’ve even done this with football, turning on the TV and clicking “start over” sometime in the second quarter. Works well, and gets me more time for the “honey do” list.
Both, obviously. For TV advertisers the mobile device can be a message attenuator and a message amplifier, depending upon the viewer’s interests and mindset.
At home, we now find ourselves routinely picking up the mobile phone to check trivia about actors or directors, as well as player stats from sporting events. It’s a way of interacting with the programming. Sometimes that means pausing the program in progress for a few moments.
The same phenomenon can apply to ads. See something interesting or relevant—check it out on the tablet. What’s great about this is the self-selecting nature of this process. Broadcasting has always been a numbers game. The second screen can quickly filter the audience down to the relevant few. I see great opportunity for advertisers who grasp this and design creative approaches to take advantage.
I am one of those folks who watches TV with my second screen in hand. I watch recorded shows almost exclusively and skip all the ads. The purpose in the second screen is to jot down things I think of or to do research usually related to what I have seen.
Methinks that if advertisers want to reach us, they need to find their way into the programming. Or perhaps in the future, we will see streaming products or word ads across the bottom of the screen.
Anything that will bring a product to mind has the potential to direct us to the second screen and a possible purchase.
And that’s my 2 cents.
I imagine it was several years ago I wrote that there wasn’t a TV show I watch in real time. All I want to watch are recorded for later viewing and skipping the commercials. I qualified that excepting sports and news.
But, this discussion made me re-think my behaviors. In fact, today, I don’t even watch news and sports in real time…in both cases for the express purpose of skipping the commercials. For example if I want to watch the 6:30 network news I record it and then start viewing it at about 6:40. I get all the info I want and it is finished by 7 or 7:05 and no commercials.
I even realized similar behavior with sports. Though, I don’t record them, I pause them at the first commercial and go do something else for 10 or 15 or even 30 minutes. I come back, FF the commercial and any future commercials and catch all the action.
I don’t know if anyone else does this, but if they do, it doesn’t say much for the future of TV advertising.
I have maintained that curiosity has a really short half-life and that multi-tasking allows someone to act on their curiosity and interest before it dissipates. I also believe that marketers should time their programmatic digital buys for when their commercials are scheduled to run, based on research I did that shows that 80% of multi-tasking is unrelated to the show.
By making it easier to react to advertising, a “second screen” will increase the measurability of ads, their effectiveness, and correlate this directly to sales. This is advertising’s achille’s heel (how do we know when an ad is effective), and the measurable impact of having a second screen only increases the ability of an advertiser to measure the effectiveness of the ad!
More Discussions
How Timely Is the Planned Lowe’s Website Renovation Focusing on Personalization?
Is Lowe’s being timely with its website reno, and is it right to be placed as…Should Costco Be Opening Members-Only Gas Stations?
Is this the right move for the warehouse club?As Boomers ‘Age Out of Peak Purchasing,’ How Can National Brands Retain Interest With Gen Z?
According to a recent First Insight study titled “Is Gen Z Still Choosing Your Brand,” while…
The short answer is, “it depends.” QVC is one company that uses both screens to its advantage. You can watch on TV and follow along on your mobile device. Ditto Project Runway. You can synchronize and buy things that are being sold.
I’ve long wondered when TV would become an actual selling channel. Perhaps for certain shows, the solution really is synchronized selling.
But to try and retain customers’ attention for ads? Good luck!
if you think long-term, TV ads are going to be viewed less and less as people shift to watching internet shows, where “deleting” the ads is becoming easier and easier. Meanwhile the poor consumer doesn’t stand a chance, surrounded on all fronts.
Omni-channel is not just how and where consumers shop, it is also how they consume everything, including media and advertising.
This is one of the best studies I’ve seen in correlating the impact of traditional TV media with web surfing and purchases.
But—and this is the elephant in the room not mentioned—fewer people are watching traditional programs on their TVs. Consumers are watching more streaming media and more on their mobile devices.
Marketers will have to do more than “tweak” ads, they need to rethink how to deliver and integrate them for an omni-channel media consumer.
As far back as the ’90s I was involved with experiments using green screen technologies for product placement in episodic television programming. At the time, the technology wouldn’t support a completely seamless integration. But it is becoming déjà vu all over again. We’re starting to see a single-brand sponsorship of programming not unlike the soap operas of the ’50s and ’60s. Brands like Red Bull are already creating content that is being viewed on all screens: TV, mobile and online.
The traditional television spot advertisement business model will simply not be sustainable in the second screen world.
Media companies and their research providers (Innerscope, for example) are on the case. Integrating behavioral, non-conscious and traditional research gets at how consumers are using multiple screens for content and communication (their own and that of advertisers). Accordingly media decisions can be made that up the odds for viewer engagement with advertising and content.
Here’s a Turner Broadcasting testimonial about just that and a link to the quoted research. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a consultant to Innerscope.
“We are using Innerscope Research to develop second screen interactions that connect emotionally and create the best multi-screen viewing experience across Turner programming.” —Jack Wakshlag, chief research officer, Turner Broadcasting.
Yes ads have to be tweaked to take advantage of the second screen, at least for the demographics that don’t go anywhere without that second screen. My kitchen research of my “friends” definitely shows a trend that if they see something on TV that piques their interest they then use their second screen to quickly research and or buy. At the very least some of them put it into their notes for later. Nothing like a reminder for an impulse buy!
I think what we are seeing is the power of omni-channel that is forcing any marketer to be multi-modal. Traditional TV has been diluted because of the proliferation of the number of channels and devices. The whole ad strategy for brands now needs to be changed to an engagement strategy since brands can’t easily push messages one way now without having to deal with the real time feedback through things like social media.
Wife and I, both comparative Luddites, have searched for and bought things on iPad and iPhone while watching TV ads. The only thing that could hurt that, for us at least, is that we’ve started recording all shows and then started to watch them 15 to 20 minutes into them so we can zap all the ads. On busy Sundays, I’ve even done this with football, turning on the TV and clicking “start over” sometime in the second quarter. Works well, and gets me more time for the “honey do” list.
Both, obviously. For TV advertisers the mobile device can be a message attenuator and a message amplifier, depending upon the viewer’s interests and mindset.
At home, we now find ourselves routinely picking up the mobile phone to check trivia about actors or directors, as well as player stats from sporting events. It’s a way of interacting with the programming. Sometimes that means pausing the program in progress for a few moments.
The same phenomenon can apply to ads. See something interesting or relevant—check it out on the tablet. What’s great about this is the self-selecting nature of this process. Broadcasting has always been a numbers game. The second screen can quickly filter the audience down to the relevant few. I see great opportunity for advertisers who grasp this and design creative approaches to take advantage.
I am one of those folks who watches TV with my second screen in hand. I watch recorded shows almost exclusively and skip all the ads. The purpose in the second screen is to jot down things I think of or to do research usually related to what I have seen.
Methinks that if advertisers want to reach us, they need to find their way into the programming. Or perhaps in the future, we will see streaming products or word ads across the bottom of the screen.
Anything that will bring a product to mind has the potential to direct us to the second screen and a possible purchase.
And that’s my 2 cents.
I imagine it was several years ago I wrote that there wasn’t a TV show I watch in real time. All I want to watch are recorded for later viewing and skipping the commercials. I qualified that excepting sports and news.
But, this discussion made me re-think my behaviors. In fact, today, I don’t even watch news and sports in real time…in both cases for the express purpose of skipping the commercials. For example if I want to watch the 6:30 network news I record it and then start viewing it at about 6:40. I get all the info I want and it is finished by 7 or 7:05 and no commercials.
I even realized similar behavior with sports. Though, I don’t record them, I pause them at the first commercial and go do something else for 10 or 15 or even 30 minutes. I come back, FF the commercial and any future commercials and catch all the action.
I don’t know if anyone else does this, but if they do, it doesn’t say much for the future of TV advertising.
I have maintained that curiosity has a really short half-life and that multi-tasking allows someone to act on their curiosity and interest before it dissipates. I also believe that marketers should time their programmatic digital buys for when their commercials are scheduled to run, based on research I did that shows that 80% of multi-tasking is unrelated to the show.
By making it easier to react to advertising, a “second screen” will increase the measurability of ads, their effectiveness, and correlate this directly to sales. This is advertising’s achille’s heel (how do we know when an ad is effective), and the measurable impact of having a second screen only increases the ability of an advertiser to measure the effectiveness of the ad!