00;00;06;23 - 00;00;22;08
Meagan
Hi. Welcome to Dig In the podcast brought to you by Dig Insights. Every week we interview founders, marketers and researchers, from innovative brands to learn how they're approaching their role and their category in a clever way.

00;00;22;10 - 00;00;44;27
Gillian
So first things first. Hello, everyone, and thank you for making some time to join. I'm Gillian Geddie. I am an associate VP at Dig Insights, VP of Insights, and I'm really here just to share some results of a recent initiative of ours exploring second screen culture for consumers and the challenges that that introduces for brands in capturing consumers attention.

00;00;44;29 - 00;01;25;16
Gillian
As a little bit of an introduction to some of you who may not know us quite as well, Dig Insights is a tech enabled insight and strategy consultancy. Our focus is really around uncovering consumer preferences and behavior to facilitate and enhance innovation. Ultimately, our goal is to really help businesses execute reliably against their growth initiatives. One of the ways that we pursue that goal is through our Upsiide platform, which is a proprietary innovation platform that allows us to answer brand questions in a new clever way that's quite representative of how consumers are used to engaging with media.

00;01;25;18 - 00;01;46;19
Gillian
Another way that we really pursue this goal of helping businesses succeed is by trying to keep our finger on the pulse of any challenges that might be facing consumers and brands in the modern age. So multitasking is very much a part of our everyday life. An average adult spends about 30% of their time multitasking using multiple screens at once.

00;01;46;21 - 00;02;22;09
Gillian
95% of consumers indicate that they at least hold their smartphone while they're watching TV. 81% of students will report that they multitask while doing homework. And it's become so ubiquitous and so widespread as a practice that we've kind of forgotten that our brains really aren't suited to handle this kind of behavior and stimulus overload. So research has found that in actual fact, only about 2.5% of people can actually multitask effectively, which is to say multitask without losing fluency or efficacy in either task.

00;02;22;12 - 00;02;47;29
Gillian
And in fact, we only hold information in our short term memory for about 30 seconds before it's disregarded. If we don't then encoded into long term memory. So we really have a fairly limited amount of time to try to break through to consumers and a very fairly stimulus heavy environment. So what does that mean? It means that brands and advertisers are really facing a challenge and engaging consumers in a digital landscape.

00;02;48;01 - 00;03;09;25
Gillian
So first things first, you need to break through this excessive noise and capture consumer's attention. Subsequently, you need to be sufficiently salient enough to be worth encoding into long term memory. And all of this needs to take place before you can even start to convert that attention into engagement, either through digital mediums or in their day to day real life.

00;03;09;28 - 00;03;32;19
Gillian
So our question here was really what can brands do to try to navigate consumer distraction? We set out to answer a couple of different questions in this case. Firstly, with sort of a general exploration of the landscape of how are people using phones, computers and TVs or second screens, how does engagement with with different devices differ across demographics?

00;03;32;26 - 00;03;56;02
Gillian
Our why questions of why is it that people are getting so distracted? Why are they choosing to reach for a phone when they're already engaged with other activities and other devices? And finally, the what's what can brands really do from here? What can we do to grab consumer attention? Can we identify what makes them tap the buy button and ultimately make that decision to engage?

00;03;56;04 - 00;04;29;15
Gillian
So we pursued these questions by conducting a five minute survey in December. This was amongst a thousand phone owners in each of the US and Canada. Of course not representative on age, gender and region. We asked our respondents a series of questions around their media consumption and some general profiling, and then included an outside idea screen exercise to delve a little bit deeper into ad preferences and memorability to see if we can generate some ideas of what brands can do to break through in this challenging landscape.

00;04;29;18 - 00;04;57;00
Gillian
So first things first, we want to explore how consumers are engaging with their phones and other devices. Unsurprisingly, of course, to everyone here, cell phone usage makes up a pretty substantial part of our day, so much so that it eclipses our engagement with other more traditional devices like a television. So we can see just about 50% of our respondents are indicating that they engage in heavy use of their phone.

00;04;57;00 - 00;05;23;20
Gillian
So that's 5 hours or more per day. So that's a pretty substantial proportion of our time. And when you take into account the amount of hours that we're spending on other devices, that's a lot of screen time per day and a fairly substantial amount of overlap there. We then wanted to delve a little bit further into the differences between light, medium and heavy users of cell phones to really understand where they're sort of standing apart from each other.

00;05;23;23 - 00;05;47;17
Gillian
Light users, as we might expect, do tend to lean a little bit older. We have a greater representation of the boomer age group here, lean a little bit more male as a function of being older consumers. We tend to see some generally higher income just as a result of being a bit more established and tend to use their phones to watch the news disproportionately higher than a couple of our other groups.

00;05;47;19 - 00;06;08;29
Gillian
Medium users, we start to lean a little bit younger, more of a representation of Gen Z and millennials. Not much of a strong gender bias in this case, and income is a little bit lower just as a result of being, again, a lower age group. Notably, this is a group that uses devices predominantly when they're on their own as a form of self entertainment.

00;06;08;29 - 00;06;34;24
Gillian
So play games to keep you entertained while trying to fall asleep, and we'll largely engage as a result in sort of entertaining mediums like comedy or sports or YouTube where heavy users differ. And of course here we see a really high representation of our younger age groups. They tend to lean a little bit more female as a function of being younger, generally have a lower overall household income.

00;06;34;26 - 00;06;58;02
Gillian
But what's a really notable difference is that our heavy users are reaching for their phone, both when alone and when engaged in a more social situation. So it's not just about providing a social outlet for them. And really amongst our heavy users, we see that they're using their phones to devour a wide variety of different forms of content, a little bit less focused on sports.

00;06;58;04 - 00;07;25;02
Gillian
Notably, heavy usage of the phone is really highly correlated with heavy usage of other devices as well that these tend to just be more technologically focused and attuned to consumers in general. The next question that we really wanted to delve into is what's driving consumers to engage with their phone while they're also engaged with other tasks. And we're definitely seeing some hints that the phone is still very much being used to fulfill a social needs.

00;07;25;04 - 00;07;57;02
Gillian
So the activities where people will most likely also engage with their phone is when they're eating alone, watching a show, movie or video, or if they're going to the bathroom, whereas activities where they're less likely to reach for their phone are during quality time with family and friends while studying on a computer, tablet and eating with others. So again, it's really about consistently having that social mechanism that's driving people to use their phone simultaneously to other activities, but that's activities in general.

00;07;57;02 - 00;08;33;11
Gillian
And we really wanted to delve into the use of multiple screens at once. So we had 71% of our respondents say that they always or often engage in phone use while using another screen device. So that's pretty heavy usage of multiple devices at once or 49% of that. While watching a show or movie, 46% indicate that they'll use their phone, while also either working or studying and 43% while engaged in other activity on a computer or tablet, like watching the news or shopping or engaging with social media.

00;08;33;14 - 00;08;54;29
Gillian
So that's a pretty high proportion overall that are simultaneously using their phone while they're also engaged with another device in terms of what they're doing with their phone. At this point, consumers are most likely to use their phone to again, provide that little bit of extra social stimulus. So they'll use their phone to text peers or all through social media.

00;08;55;02 - 00;09;22;16
Gillian
After that, they'll be some slightly more individualistic activities like playing music or a mobile game or watching a video. But we do again see that those highest engagement is with some of those more social activities. So how does multi device usage impacts their actual purchasing behaviors and how they're responding to brands online? One of the barriers that we know here is that consumers are generally a little bit resistant to advertising and multi-device usage.

00;09;22;16 - 00;09;52;08
Gillian
Does give them an opportunity to avoid it. So we saw 87% of our respondents saying that they'll skip ads online when the option is available to them. 17%, as we saw, said that they'll use another device in order to avoid having to see an ad. 30% use an ad blocker on their phone to minimize exposure entirely. And of that 30%, 72 will actually leave a site entirely If told that they have to disable an ad blocker to access its content.

00;09;52;10 - 00;10;16;15
Gillian
So this multi-device usage does definitely give them an opportunity to lean away from advertising and to minimize their exposure a little bit. But it's not all bad news because we also see that there can be a pretty symbiotic relationship in multi-device usage. So external research has shown that consumers are more than twice as likely to recall ads when exposed on multiple devices.

00;10;16;18 - 00;10;42;23
Gillian
So the whole of recall is greater than the sum of its parts. The more different touchpoints you can be exposed to consumers on, the greater the likelihood that it will actively be encoded. As you might expect, we do see a pretty substantial generational gap in device usage and in distraction caused by multiple devices being used at once. So looking at our gen-z specifically, these are more tech adopting individuals.

00;10;43;00 - 00;11;09;29
Gillian
They're most likely to be heavy users of the phone and are generally more media engaged. They're more likely to sign up for promotional messages and emails, more likely to purchase something after seeing it in an ad. But on the flip side are a bit more likely to skip ads on online videos. They're also higher adopters of app time monitors and limiters and ad blockers and are predominantly using their phones in order to mitigate boredom.

00;11;10;01 - 00;11;44;24
Gillian
So the advantage with Gen-z is that it's a very accessible group. They're very present online and they're consuming a lot of different forms of media. So you have a lot of potential opportunities to break through. But they're also likely to be the most distracted and will have the most mechanisms in place to limit advertising exposure. Millennials is what we're calling our tech explorers, engage in sort of median level phone usage, similar levels of media engagements to our Gen Z in that they'll sign up for promotional messages and emails a little bit more likely than our older consumers to purchase something.

00;11;44;24 - 00;12;07;16
Gillian
After seeing it in an ad, they're also a bit more likely to adopt app time limiters and ad blockers, but are also more likely to use their phones to explore something that they've seen on other devices. So this is potentially a group where there's the greatest opportunity for them to be using multiple devices in pursuit of their optimal shopping process.

00;12;07;18 - 00;12;43;10
Gillian
So relative to our Gen Z, they remain a fairly accessible group. They're pretty presence online, but expect that they probably have some mechanisms in place to reduce the degree to which they're exposed to advertising and then Gen X, of course, being our tech resistors, these are the ones that are generally lighter phone users, more likely to be media disengaged and that they're reluctant to sign up for promotional messages and emails, less likely to purchase something, but are also bit more likely to watch ads by virtue of either not having an ad blocker or not being familiar with how to go about skipping them.

00;12;43;13 - 00;13;08;08
Gillian
They also tend to be lower adopters of app time monitors, limiters and as noted, blockers. And similarly to our millennials use phones to explore something they've seen on their other device. So while they're the least accessible group in terms of the fact that they're least present in digital media, they're also least likely to be distracted and have fewer mechanisms to limit that advertising exposure.

00;13;08;10 - 00;13;46;13
Gillian
So our next question becomes what can advertisers do in this fairly distracted and congested environment to try to better appeal to consumers? Here we used our Upsiide platform to explore a little bit of what advertising was most appealing to consumers and what aspects were most likely to break through. So we showed our consumers a series of different ads specific to athletic footwear in this case, and then ask them to indicate which ones they liked by swiping right and which ones they didn't like by swiping left once they'd like to more than one ads, they were asked to indicate which one they preferred.

00;13;46;16 - 00;14;22;12
Gillian
This is to really reflect consumer's reality in the purchasing environment, where they're very rarely considering a brand in isolation and predominantly are comparing it actively to other options available to them. Of course, this being specific to athletic footwear, this is a fairly specific example. So our idea was not to look for hard and fast rules that would always, always apply, but really just to try to synthesize down to some general themes of what is going to be most appealing and what offers you the greatest chance to breakthrough.

00;14;22;15 - 00;14;49;26
Gillian
In terms of our top performing ideas, we saw Nike, Puma and Adidas really rise to the top as the most appealing ads and renew prints and bands really falling to the bottom. Looking at our top performing ideas, some of the general esthetic themes that we saw them having in common was a pretty minimal reliance on text as well as fairly simple visualizations, a sort of a singular point of focus.

00;14;49;26 - 00;15;21;10
Gillian
Either the shoe or a clear focus on the logo. Logo was always clearly visible, and they all tend to to a degree benefit from big brand recognition. These are, of course, the more prominent brands within the field and tend to rise to the top as a result. Where we see some general themes across the board is that all of these ads are successfully delivering on some simpler stimulus that requires less conscious mental engagement for consumers to process.

00;15;21;17 - 00;15;47;02
Gillian
So it's really demanding the least of them in order to get the information they need out of the ad. Conversely, looking at our underperforming ideas, we see some opposing themes, generally a more cluttered design, some slightly louder and more chaotic visuals and colors. There's multiple points of visual focus that they could attune to without necessarily a clear sense of visual prioritization.

00;15;47;04 - 00;16;16;29
Gillian
And we're a little bit more likely to have an obstructed or crowded brand logo. So distilling this down to the general theme, we're seeing that the lower performing ads tend to be the ones that involve some extra stimulus and consequently require more effortful interpretation for consumers to encode the material. So our key takeaways that we took from this piece of research were firstly, that consumers are engaging with multiple devices as a norm.

00;16;16;29 - 00;16;45;19
Gillian
So brands should go into advertising with the expectation that you're communicating with a distracted audience and they've got a lot that they're processing at once. multi-Screen usage is generally driven by a desire for social engagement, but we're also seeing that motivation to explore what's on their second device. There is some potential opportunity here if you can prioritize presence on multiple devices at once, that gives you a better chance to really reinforce visibility of your brands.

00;16;45;21 - 00;17;09;14
Gillian
We've seen that brands really need to capture consumers attention quickly and likely some of your best opportunities to do that is through employing simple, visually clear communication that requires minimal active processing to understand the least less work that we can make for consumers. Generally speaking, the easier time that will have next that the importance of really leveraging the power of brands.

00;17;09;17 - 00;17;33;06
Gillian
So in a congested landscape, it's one of the more powerful tools available to maximize breakthrough and ensure that you'll be the piece of information that's remembered long term over another brand. So really reinforcing those strong brand associations and recognizability is key in a distracted environment. And finally, keep in mind that the challenges in this space vary pretty substantially by audience.

00;17;33;08 - 00;18;05;00
Gillian
Younger consumers might be the easiest to reach in terms of their media presence, but they're also the most distracted. So your opportunity here is to focus on capturing their attention as quickly as possible before they move on. Conversely, our older consumers are harder to access, but more mentally present when they do so you should really take advantage of opportunities to connect with them and try to communicate a more fulsome message to to really capitalize on the time they spend engaging with your media.

00;18;05;02 - 00;18;26;20
Gillian
Really what we just want to stress with these findings here is that this is an additional lens for brands to take into account and thinking about how they're reaching consumers and how consumers ultimately are going to process that material. So it certainly means that there's a little bit of an extra challenge that's being faced in accessing consumers in today's digital landscape.

00;18;26;22 - 00;18;41;16
Gillian
But being conscious of this element does mean that you have a greater opportunity to combat this distraction effects and try to make sure that you're the material that breaks through.

00;18;41;18 - 00;18;48;15
Meagan
Thanks for tuning in this week. Find us on LinkedIn at Dig Insights and don't forget to hit. Subscribe for a weekly dose of fresh content.