Consumers Continue to Extend Brand Engagement Beyond TV

RESTON: A study of ten broadcast and cable network brands showed that an average of 90 percent of consumers engaging with a brand did so on TV, while 25 percent did so online and 12 percent through online video, according to a new white paper from comScore and the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM).

This means that major broadcast and cable networks are offering their content across multiple platforms, and consumers are actually taking advantage of the opportunity.

Another section of the white paper, entitled How Multi-Screen Consumers are Changing Media Dynamics, analyzed new consumer groups with distinct media behaviors and characteristics, finding three categories: TV-only, digital-only and multi-screen consumers. TV-only consumers use the brand’s media content on TV but don’t access it on any other platforms. The digital-only consumers engage with brands on mobile or the Internet but not on TV. The multi-screen category is for consumers who used TV and the Internet, TV and mobile, or all three. TV-only consumers represent the largest portion, 72 percent. However, the digital-only and multi-screen consumers are making a significant contribution now. Multi-screen represents 17 percent, while digital-only is 11 percent.

The research also finds that consumers who use media brands via online video and multi-screen consumers tend to be the most engaged and most loyal brand consumers. On average across the ten media brands studied, consumers who engaged with brand content via online video and TV consumed 25 percent more minutes on the TV platform than the TV audience overall.

There was also shown to be no cannibalization going on. All three consumer groups—TV, multi-screen and online video—continue to spend the majority of their time with a given media brand on TV. The share of viewing minutes with the media brand on digital platforms grows as consumers build these platforms into their experience with the brand. Multi-screen consumers spend almost twice as much time with the media brand on digital platforms than the overall TV audience for the media brand. Consumers who experience the brand on TV and online video spend more than twice a much time with the brand on digital platforms.

Further research shows that consumers are using TV and digital platforms concurrently. Across the media brands in the study, 60 percent of the TV consumers used the Internet concurrently at least once during the five-week period. About half of those consumers, 29 percent, used Facebook. A smaller percentage were visiting the network’s own websites and using the network’s own online video content on a concurrent basis.

“While TV remains the leading media channel, once TV-centric media brands now engage with their consumers across a variety of digital touchpoints. While this enhances the quality of brand engagement, it also increases the complexity of media planning and analysis by orders of magnitude,” said Joan FitzGerald, comScore’s VP of TV and cross-media solutions. “By leveraging comScore’s unique single-source multi-screen measurement panel, we are radically reducing this complexity by providing media companies with actionable insights that can be used to determine how to effectively reach their target audiences and optimize cross-media planning.”