Assessing the Impact of Second Screen Activity During Television Broadcasts on

Sponsor Brand Awareness

Jonathan A. Jensen, Patrick Walsh, PhD, Joe Cobbs, PhD & Brian A. Turner, PhD

Explosion in Demand for Live Sports Broadcasts

INTRODUCTION

• "Live sports are the most powerful programming in the universe right now.”

– ESPN President John Skipper (Guthrie, 2013)

• “It’s not DVR-able. People want to tune in.”

– Jim Vurpillat, Global Marketing Director for Cadillac (McCarthy, 2013)

Changes in Consumption of TV Broadcasts

INTRODUCTION

• Advances in technology changing consumer engagement with sports

broadcasts

• Watching live sports on PC’s, tablets and mobile devices

• Watching in new environments (i.e., at work, on the go)

• Use of “second screens” during broadcast

Increased use of “second screens”

INTRODUCTION

• 57% of smartphone/tablet owners check email while watching TV

(Nielsen, 2012)

• 34% use mobile computing devices to check sports scores (Nielsen,

2012)

• Growth in Twitter conversation about live television • 25.3 million tweets during Super Bowl XLVIII

• 13.8 million tweets during the GRAMMYs (Nielsen, 2014)

Problem/Purpose

INTRODUCTION

• How do changes in fan consumption of sports broadcasts impact the

brands paying to be integrated into these broadcasts?

• Specifically, does the use of “second screens” is impact brand

awareness for sponsors?

Began with Brand Integration in TV and Movies

LITERATURE REVIEW

• First investigations of brand integration started with product placement

in TV and movies (e.g., Gupta and Lord, 1998; Law and Braun, 2000)

• Joiner, and Cameron (2001) found evidence that brand integration was

more effective than commercials; integrated approach most successful

• More recent studies focused on the efficacy of virtual advertising, with

Bennett et al. (2006) finding commercials to be more entertaining,

informative, irritating, and less credible than virtual ads; Breuer and

Rumpf (2012) found that recall depended largely on attention rates

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Figure 1. Paivio’s (2010) depiction of the multimodal dual coding model

Impact of “second screen” use

HYPOTHESES

• Based on DCT, use of a “second screen” during consumption should

adversely impact brand awareness under video-only or audio-only

conditions, but not under audiovisual conditions

• H1: Utilization of a second screen during consumption should reduce

brand recognition among those exposed to audio-only or visual-only

stimuli, but not among those exposed to audiovisual stimuli

• H2: Utilization of a second screen during consumption should reduce

brand recall among those exposed to audio-only or visual-only stimuli,

but not among those exposed to audiovisual stimuli

3 x 2 Between-Subjects Design

METHOD

• 6 total groups exposed to audiovisual, visual-only and audio-only stimuli

• 3 groups asked to use “second screens” during exposure to stimuli

• DV: Brand recognition and recall

• IV: Group membership

• Disguised purpose of the study

• Sample: 18-24 year-old students, familiar with technology and ability to

multitask

• Total of 189 participants, mean age of 20.54 years (SD = 1.62)

METHOD: STIMULI

RESULTS

No

. o

f B

ran

ds

Audiovisual Audio Only Visual Only1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

2.63

2.142.05

2.45

1.58 1.61

Brand Recognition

ControlSecond Screen

RESULTS

No

. o

f B

ran

ds

Audiovisual Audio Only Visual Only1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.0

2.2

2.4

2.6

2.8

3.0

2.43

1.83

1.641.62

1.35 1.35

Brand Recall

ControlSecond Screen

Brand marketers may not be getting expected ROI

IMPLICATIONS

• For audiovisual group with second screens, brands available for retrieval with

recognition (Higgins & Bargh, 1987)

• However, same group unable to recall brands from memory, implying cognitively

effortful use of second screen interfered with elaborative rehearsal, memory

processes that enable the transfer of information from working memory to

storage in longer-term memory (Benjamin & Bjork, 2000; Rammsayer & Ulrich,

2011)

• Given consumption trends, marketers expecting lift in brand awareness may not

be receiving adequate return on their investment

First in Series of Experiments

FUTURE RESEARCH

• Comparison of effectiveness of brand integration and commercials (e.g., Levin,

Joiner, & Cameron, 2001; Olson & Thjømøe, 2009; Breuer & Rumpf, 2012)

• Utilization of subliminal priming (e.g., Hassin, Ferguson, Shidlovski, & Gross,

2007)

• Introduction of cognitive load (e.g., McFerran, Dahl, Fitzsimons, & Morales, 2010)

• Use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; e.g., Hoge, 2012) or facial

electromyography (EMG; e.g., Cacioppo, Petty, Losch, & Kim, 1986)

Questions? Jonathan A. Jensen (jensen.205@osu.edu)

Patrick Walsh (ptwalsh@indiana.edu)

Joe Cobbs (cobbsj1@nku.edu)

Brian A. Turner (turner.409@osu.edu)