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A First Look at SECOND SCREENS [Customer Relationship Management](Customer Relationship Management Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) As media consumption becomes more fragmented, marketers consider syncing television and mobile content by Judith Aquino When was the last time you watched television without simultaneously glancing at a smartphone, tablet, or any other digital screen The concept of a television set commanding an entire household's attention is quickly becoming as quaint as a Norman Rockwell painting. According to Nielsen's "20 12 Cross Platform" report, 85 percent of mobile device owners use their tablet or smartphone while watching TV at least once per month, and 40 percent do so daily. Forty-one percent use a tablet while watching TV daily, and 39 percent use a smartphone. As their audience's attention becomes increasingly fragmented, marketers are taking notice and beginning to adapt. Reaching out to viewers through the "second screen" (i.e., tablets and smartphones) with advertisements or app experiences that complement what is being shown on television is gaining traction among marketers, notes David Cooperstein, a vice president and analyst at Forrester Research. "Even though second-screen advertising is still new for a lot of marketers, we were already seeing some aggressive experimentation twelve months ago," Cooperstein says. In a recent Forrester survey of more than 120 advertisers conducted through a partnership with the Association of National Advertisers, 49 percent of the respondents said they were experimenting or will experiment with ads synchronized to a second screen like a PC, tablet, or smartphone, as well as with targeted TV ad placements. SHAZAM FOR TV Michael McGuire, a research vice president at Gartner, agrees that advertisers are looking for more ways to follow consumers onto their mobile devices. When it comes to engaging viewers through a smartphone or tablet, though, simply rehashing an online display ad or television commercial is not going to work, McGuire warns. "Don't just take your online ad and shove it into these formats," he comments, "because that says don't care.'" A more promising approach, McGuire points out, is connecting the ad or app experience to what a viewer sees on the television set in real time, along with a call to action. At the 20 1 2 Super Bowl, nearly half of the brands that aired commercials during the event sought to engage viewers further by including an opportunity for them to "shazam" or tag the ads with their smartphones to unlock exclusive offers and content. Similar to scanning a QR code, by pressing a button on the Shazam app on a mobile device, users can get information about a song or television show by holding the device in the direction of the sound. Last year's Super Bowl was the first major live television event that included Shazam-enabled ads. In exchange for having their ads tagged, companies responded in various ways: Toyota entered Shazam users in a sweepstakes for two Camrys; Pepsi offered a music video; and Best Buy gave out $50 gift cards for a mobile phone. At the game itself, Shazam users could see real-time statistics about the plays and players as well as participate in polls and vote for their favorite ads. During the halftime show, people could get the set list, buy music, and download mobile apps from the artists. While the company declined to reveal the exact number, it claims that viewers tagged content "millions" of times during last year's Super Bowl and deemed the ads a success. This year's Super Bowl included Shazam-enabled ads as well, which offered viewers polls to vote for their favorite ad, song titles, game statistics, and other information. Shazam did not have any statistics to share about the 2013 Super Bowl when this article was written, but according to David Jones, Shazam's executive vice president of marketing, 85 million people in the United States and 275 million people worldwide have downloaded Shazam on their phones. Second-screen advertising is "venturing into mainstream territory" with "so many people already tagging ads," Jones maintains. "We're looking forward to more cases where the second screen becomes an extension, another blank canvas, for creative agencies to work with and. . .make some pretty innovative uses around their brand." GETTING CLOSER TO THE ACTION As the United States Tennis Association (USTA) learned, second-screen apps are also useful for helping fans stay involved with a live action event that takes place over a number of days. Last summer, the USTA gave fans a new way to follow their favorite players during the US Open when it introduced the 2012 US Open Tennis Championships app. Developed through a partnership with IBM, the app, made available for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, provided match data, player analyses, news updates, videos, photos, tweets, and Facebook updates in real time. The data that fueled the app came from IBM's onsite hub, where dozens of people monitored the live scores, Twitter sentiment, and other analytics. The purpose of the app was to enable fans to stay engaged with the action at the US Open wherever they were, explains Phil Green, senior director of advanced media at USTA. "People are on the go so [having an app that provided] scores, news, videos, and photos is important for that core live experience," Green says. The social media component is also critical, Green adds, because it allows viewers to participate in the same conversations. "Whether you were watching the match on TV, sitting in the stands, or sitting in a café in France, you were part of the same social conversation regardless of the device," he says. During the 15 days that the US Open took place last year, the USTA received more than 325 million page views across its platforms and nearly 12 million unique visitors - a "phenomenal number," according to Green. Between the iPhone, Android, and iPad, the USTA had nearly one million downloads of its app during the tournament. At one point during the Open, the iPad app even topped the list of free sports apps in the iTunes store. The USTA was more than pleased with the app's results, according to Green. "When users come to our site, whether that's on the desktop or laptop or our app, they are engaging with us and they're sticking around," he says, "and you can't ask for more." Green stayed mum on further plans for the app except to say that the organization is working on ways to enhance the fan experience even further. TARGETED SYNCHRONIZATION Gracenote, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America and a competitor of Shazam, is making its own mark in the second-screen advertising space. Like Shazam, Gracenote started out with audio recognition technology for music and has since branched out into ads for second screens. What differentiates Gracenote, according to its president, Stephen White, is that instead of having users tap a button to access the exclusive content, Gracenote uses its audio and video fingerprinting technology, combined with other software, to recognize the content on a person's TV and then deliver synchronized Web ads and other content automatically to a brand's app. "Synchronized second screens open new possibilities for advertisers, and we're building out these platforms that allow for this [synchronized] capability to be seamlessly integrated into apps," White says. The Syfy network used Gracenote's Entourage offering to power the recognition feature of its Syfy Sync iOS app, allowing viewers to further engage with shows like Haven, the original series based on a Stephen King novella, and the reality show Faceoff. If viewers open the Syfy app while watching Haven, for example, the app will serve up interactive content that is synchronized with what is being shown on the television screen. The content includes alternate endings, behind-the-scenes photos, videos, polls, and quizzes. Although the network declined to share ROI stats about the app, Syfy is an example of the ways that brands are experimenting with second-screen content, according to White. "Brands are starting to tap into these interactive capabilities and provide a new experience," White says. "This is the time to experiment and try things that haven't been done before." To that end, Gracenote plans to give its clients even more options to experiment with through its partnerships with other vendors. In January, the company partnered with Invidi to develop an advertising system that can identify the TV programs and commercials viewers are watching in real time and determine which commercials should play next. By combining Gracenote's audio and video fingerprinting technology with Invidi's ad decisioning engine, advertisers can target preselected audiences with specific commercials on their television sets and mobile devices based on demographic data. Also in January, Gracenote teamed up with the video stream management company mDialog and the ad management and distribution platform DG. Gracenote and mDialog are developing ways to deliver targeted advertising to viewers across cable and satellite broadcasts as well as second-screen devices in a more seamless manner. Gracenote and DG are fueling the delivery of targeted advertisements that are automatically synchronized between what is being shown on the television and a brand's Gracenote-powered app. In terms of how companies could develop branded content for secondscreen ads, John Douglas, DG's product marketing manager for converged media services, sees two patterns developing. "Companies have an opportunity to create a more engaging ad through second screens," he comments. "Say Lexus had a commercial for their fall line on TV, and they knew something about the audience member. They could serve up an ad for a roadster versus a sedan, and inside that ad are car configurators, different offers, and dealer locations." Douglas also describes a situation where the second-screen ad could be "nothing more than a 'like' or a simple link to a URL or Facebook page. It's an ad that wouldn't necessarily interrupt the experience that a user has within the application." TWEETING WITH THE NEXT IRON CHEF In addition to targeted and synchronized advertising, some brands are using social media as another vehicle to connect multitasking viewers with their television programs. To generate excitement last fall for the upcoming season of The Next Iron Chefi Redemption and keep the energy going throughout the season, the Food Network launched an app on IntoNow by Yahool's mobile app platform that included recipes for the dishes that chefs were making at that moment, behindthe-scenes photos, and facts about the chefs and judges. The Food Network also introduced a social media hub dubbed "Fan Feed," designed specifically for The Next Iron Chef viewers. Powered by Mass Relevance, a provider of social media engagement technology, Fan Feed enabled viewers to tweet about the chef they were rooting for, and interact with the chefs themselves, as well as other fans. A Mass counter displayed trending results of the most-talked-about chef and showcased tweets for added social context. Even though fans can communicate with celebrities at any time through social media, that they were more likely to get a response from the chefs - who were encouraged to tweet with viewers during each episode - provided another incentive to watch the show, says Katie Ilch, vice president of on- and off-air media strategy at the Food Network. "Not only were we saying, 'Watch the premiere of Iron Chef on November 4,' but we could also say 'Watch the episode on November 4 and tweet live with Alton Brown.' It creates another reason for viewers to want to tune in. It's another hook, another layer for why you would want to watch it at that time," Ilch notes. The Food Network declined to quantify the success rate of its secondscreen efforts for The Next Iron Chef but Kate Gold, director of social media for the Food Network, maintains that it "was a useful learning experience that we will apply to other shows in the future." THE FUTURE OF SECOND SCREENS There are several areas where companies could stumble in their use of secondscreen ads. In addition to trying to squeeze the same television commercial onto a second screen (big mistake), another error would be delivering content obtrusively. Just as advertisers needed to be weaned off online pop-up ads, they should also avoid videos or ads that interrupt consumers, especially on a mobile device, McGuire says. "A smartphone in particular is a very personal device that's with the person all the time," he remarks, "and the last thing a marketer should do is annoy consumers on their phone." Another potential obstacle would be a lack of investment in the technology needed to gather and analyze consumer data for creating relevant ads. "If we don't see investments in the type of systems that can analyze profile information, that could be a major challenge for marketers," McGuire adds. In terms of analytics, advertisers can benefit from the added insight into viewer preferences and behavior that was previously unavailable for television ads, Forrester's Cooperstein observes. "One of the most useful [types of] data is something advertisers have clamored for for a long time, which is the ability to get real-time insight into what type of people are watching a commercial by matching the ad they clicked to [aggregated] profiles or social media impressions," Cooperstein notes. As advertisers explore the concept of offering dual screen interactivity between a tablet and consumers' television sets, it remains to be seen how many people brands can truly reach with this approach. How many people are actually going to use the app or respond to the ad Even though it is too early to tell how much of an impact second-screen advertising will have on television advertising, marketers are optimistic The percentage of marketers who feel that TV advertisements have become more effective due to new innovations in advertising, according to Forrester, went up threefold, from 7 percent in 2010 to 21 percent in 2012. As White notes, "This is an exciting time to be in advertising." "DON'T JUST TAKE YOUR ONLINE AD AND SHOVE IT INTO [MOBILE] FORMATS, BECAOSE THAT SAYS 'I DONT CARE"' An app developed by the United States Tennis Association and IBM gave 2012 US Open fans real-time player and match information wherever they were. "BRANDS ARE STARTING TO TAP INTO THESE INTERACTIVE CAPABILITIES AND PROVIDE A NEW EXPERIENCE" BY THE NUMBERS Media fragmentation is rising faster than ever. Here's a snapshot of how viewers consume content these days. * More than 50 percent of mobile users own a smartphone, and nearly 20 percent of U.S. households OWfl a tablet, according to Nielsen. * A Nielsen report shows nearly half of 18- to 24-year-olds use their smartphones while watching TV at least once per day, and 29 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds Shop on their smartphones while watching TV. * Thirty-six percent of people ages 35 to 54 and 44 percent of people ages 55 to 64 use their tablets to dive deeper into the TV program they are currently watching, Nielsen says. * About 38 percent of U.S. smartphone owners used their phones as a second screen during or after sporting events last year, according to comScore. Associate Editor Judith Aquino can be reached at [email protected]. (c) 2013 Information Today, Inc. |