The Rise of the Second Screen

The game is on, and the family is gathering around the TV set, but increasingly they’re bringing something else with them, be it a smartphone, or a laptop or a tablet. They’re watching this while they’re watching that.

An infographic describes this new phenomenon as the Rise of the Second Screen, when TV went social. If millions of people are watching the game on TV, and millions more are commenting on it on Twitter or Facebook, from a marketing perspective, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to find a way into that conversation.

Infographic Credit: Visual.ly

For example, let’s say we were in the pizza business. We could have an ad on TV that contained a call to action for some fantastic deal if ordered over the Internet in the next 20 minutes. We could find out right there how many of our football fans were surfing the ‘Net while the game was on, and that makes it easier to find the ones who were going to order a pizza.

In addition, Nielsen says nearly 4 out of 5 consumers surf the Web while watching TV. More than 85 percent of U.S. tablet users have them in their hands while watching TV, and 78 percent of UK viewers.

Even in this day and age, that’s somewhat amazing.