40% of Mobile Users are Multitasking During TV Time

Listen up advertisers, consumers are multitasking while watching TV, not by doing dishes or reading, but by connecting to their mobile devices.

Yesterday Nielson reported on their blog that about 40% of tablet and smartphone owners use their devices while watching TV every day, according to their Q2 2011 research.

People who own e-readers, on the other hand, are less likely to multitask, with only 14% saying that they watched TV and while using their device.

Most consumers are checking email, and they are checking it not only during commercial breaks, but also during programming.

After email, women are more likely to be on social networking sites, while men are more likely to be glancing at their favorite sports teams’ scores.

It may be troubling for most advertisers to think of consumers spreading their attention over multiple screens and content and yet, there is some good news for advertisers.

Nielson has reported also that 19% of these mobile multitaskers searched for information about products they had seen in commercials while watching TV and 13% were looking for coupons and other deals.

While this could be a comfort to some advertisers, they still need to be thinking about how they will combat consumers dividing their attention between multiple media.

While TV advertising will continue to be an important part of a brand’s media mix because of the reach it provides, this new data and the proliferation of the DVR make it important for brands to think about how they use TV and what other means they have to communicate in order to break through the noise.

The obvious place to turn, is to mobile, where consumers are splitting their attention with TV already.

Brands will spend $1.23 billion on mobile advertising this year, up $0.74 billion from last year, according to eMarketer, But with heavy reliance on text-based messages, brands need to start venturing into display and rich media and start pioneering still yet undefined formats in order to get those multitasking eyes back on their ads.