A recent study, published in the Journal of Consumer Marketing, found that distracted TV viewers (using a second screen while watching TV) have trouble recalling brand messaging featured throughout a broadcast.
The study involved 189 viewers who watched a six-minute video segment consisting of clips from two real college football games broadcast on ESPN. During the clips, the announcers promoted three brands: Allstate, Capital One and Russell Athletic. In one case, an Allstate logo was featured on nets behind the goal posts when field goals were kicked, and for reinforcement, Allstate was also mentioned as a sponsor by the announcers during the game.
Study participants were divided into two groups, with one group watching clips sans distraction; the other group sent at least four text messages from their mobile phones while watching the clip. When asked to recall how many brands were mentioned in the clip, those who watched the clips without distraction were able to recall an average of 2.43 brands without any hints; the group sending texts on a second screen recalled on average only 1.62 brands.
“Viewers don’t even remember that your brand was there on TV because they were busy posting on Facebook or Twitter or reading email,” said Jonathan Jensen, who led the study as a doctoral student in sport management at Ohio State University. “This should provide a measure of pause to brand marketers who are spending a lot of money to get their products integrated into live sporting events and other TV shows.”
For brand marketers, this study helps confirm what they likely suspect–and it is why ad spend continues to shift more toward digital.