Growth of the second screen

 

One of the interesting facets of the new multi-screen consumer is the emergence of the TV second screen, with 60% of Australians having used the internet whilst watching TV – most noticeably on a smartphone, tablet or laptop device. Statistics say that 1 in 3 of us do this daily.

And whilst much of that behaviour is spent checking email, surfing the web, checking social media and other functional tasks, a small but growing percentage have claimed to be interacting with what is currently on TV, or have been prompted to search for something based on what they’ve just seen on TV.

Not surprisingly then, we’ve seen TV networks launch a host of TV viewing partner apps for smartphone and tablet designed to extend the TV experience and encourage users to interact and participate in the TV programs they are watching. The list includes Fango (Seven), JumpIn (Nine) and the latest arrival Zeebox (Ten), which has worked successfully in the US.

Fango from the Seven Network allows you to check into your favourite shows while watching, chat with fellow fans through Twitter and Facebook or filter to your own Facebook friends, vote on polls in real time and take part in quizzes, trivia contests, and earn yourself badges and achievements.

Check out the website

Jump-in from the Nine Network is currently being relaunched after the introduction earlier this year to co-incide with the Olympics coverage. Referred to by Peter Wiltshire as "Fango on steroids", the app was received as somewhat underwhelming, and the network has gone back to the drawing board, with plans to re-launch in the near future.

 

Zeebox from Network Ten only recently launched into the Australian marketplace after strong showings overseas. Touting itself as "your TV sidekick", what sets this aside from the rest is the addition of "zeetags" - an interactive tag that appears while watching a show or an advertisement that leads into more information for the viewer. For example, a mum watching a cooking show and seeing that the day's theme looked at game meat means an advertiser could look to create a zeetag that showed more info on game and where it could be purchased.

Check out the website



Its early days with these apps and as such the TV networks are keeping the results fairly close to their chest. Fango have provided some initial stats that it has achieved since its launch in November 2011 that include:

-          537,000 downloads

-          66% Smartphone vs 34% tablet usage

-          64% Female

-          1.2M total check-ins

-          August saw 42 actions per user and 62% of check-ins during prime time

To date a lot of the focus of these apps has been to encourage people to access the apps and have conversations with other users that are interacting with the TV shows. My personal belief is that Facebook can do that job – the real value in these second screen apps is as a way to extend the TV offering and provider greater value.

Being able to learn more about a particular character, find out about the actor, view the back story, or quickly catch up on the show are just some of the ways you can engage deeper with the show.

The exciting opportunity for advertisers is to provide relevant content, offers, and, ideally, purchases based on a combination of the content of the program and what we know about that user. This scenario below is a particularly interesting one for online shopping:

As users are effectively logged into the app, we know when they’re watching TV. If we get them to provide their online shop login or Everyday Rewards number when they first download the app, we'll then know when an Everyday Rewards member is watching TV. Whilst they are watching a cooking show, the recipe being cooked along with 4 similar recipes appear on their ‘Zeebox’ app. They can browse the recipes, find out more, add to their favourites, and potentially add to their WW online shop basket, or taking it a step further, purchase within the app. In addition, as the user is effectively logged in, what they are doing within the app is synced across smartphone, tablet and laptop versions.

There are other potential ways to leverage these second screen apps. Chevy used it to great effect during the 2012 Super Bowl effectively trying to ‘hijack’ the Superbowl and draw viewers to their app during the ad break, rather than focus on the 50 odd advertisers selling their wares in the TV ad breaks.
 

This is a very interesting digital extension to TV and there will be opportunities for retailers here. Watch this space.

The Opportunity: The shopping example is just one way we can take advantage of these second screen activities. We’ll also investigate ways to incorporate the second screen to enhance all of our future TV activity, whether it be straight TVCs, sponsorships or partnerships.