iPad, text, telly … the high selective attention of multi-screening under-24s

The days of having one screen in our lives – the TV – are long gone. Today screens surround us, whether we’re at work, on the sofa or on the go. In fact, more than eight in 10 of us multi-screen when watching the TV, gaming or browsing the web, and it’s changing how our brains absorb and retain information.

But how does this affect how we interact with content? How should brands address this to deliver ad experiences in the right context and at the right time?

Last week, we at Microsoft launched Attention Spans, a study of how consumer attention spans are evolving in response to the rise of multi-screening. We studied 2,000 UK consumers and conducted five in-house ethnographic studies to uncover new insights for the advertising and marketing community.

The research revealed that almost half (47%) of the people aged between 18 and 24 we studied have high selective attention because of their multi-screening behaviours, meaning they can maintain focus in the face of distractions. These digital natives conduct a broader range of multi-screen activities when watching TV or browsing the web. The older generations (45-years-old and over) we spoke to, however, were more disposed towards alternating attention, switching between tasks that demand different cognitive skills.

As part of the study, we identified three natural attention modes that reflect consumers’ use of technology and how they approach everyday tasks:

• Ninja: When consumers compartmentalise tasks so they can control their attention. Individual activities are allocated specific devices and usually work and play are kept separate.
• Pragmatist: When consumers show some degree of compartmentalisation but use attention skills to combine activities, rather than having rigid rules to organise their day.
• Ambidextrous: When consumers regularly blend tasks across devices, doing household admin, work and social media activities at the same time.

Many factors affect how audiences approach everyday tasks, such as vocation, time of day or age group. We created these modes to illustrate the subtle nuances that have an impact on how consumers respond to brand content.

As consumers shift their behaviour to handle multi-screen environments, brands too must shift their approach to audience engagement. Here are my three recommendations on how to address the attention evolution:

1. Understand your audience: Knowing your customer better than the competition can spell the difference between campaign success and failure. At Microsoft, we reach nearly 2 billion people, which gives us a unique understanding of changing digital behaviours. We believe comprehensive insight into consumer behaviour is central to delivering relevant and engaging brand campaigns.
2. Invest in technology: Marketers should combine the above audience insights with technologies such as programmatic (automated) ad trading and data analytics, which will allow them to reach consumers at the right moment and with the right type of content, across the right devices.
3. Adapt: Everyday life requires us to adapt our natural attention abilities to a range of situations and environments. Not only are people more naturally attuned to different attention styles, but their lifestyles and everyday demands can lead them to be more fluid or rigid with their attention. Marketers must adopt strategies that address this, using different tech platforms and ad formats to engage with consumers effectively at certain points in the day.

As digital lifestyles continue to change, comprehensive insight into consumer behaviours is central to delivering relevant marketing and ad campaigns. Understanding how attention spans can shift in response to a range of demographic and lifestyle factors is one of the many things marketers must consider, to ensure they develop advertising content that engages consumers in the right context, at the right time and on the right device.

Owen Sagness is UK general manager for Microsoft Advertising

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