High Hopes for the New Second Screen App Development Strategy
Since last year, marketers around the globe have been putting their hopes up high in the new second screen strategy, which seems to suggest that a rethinking of promoting content in both the online and TV environment is knocking at our door. IPG Media Lab’s last-year report, “The Second Screen Fallacy”, makes it easy for us to understand why anyone keen on promoting content in the visual medium should keep an eye on the second screen app development sector. Although we’re talking about relatively new, hot-from-the-oven marketing strategies, there are some examples of second screen apps which prove that IPG’s prognostics are not just a case of mumbo-jumbo talk.
How Second Screen Apps Target Consumers Like Never Before
IPG Media Lab’s report shows a punctual analysis on how platforms such as Twitter and Shazam can influence the future of second screen app development. Take Twitter for example. In this case, we’re basically talking about apps that allow TV consumers to interact through the platform itself. As crazy at it might sound, through Twitter as second screen app, the consumer himself is integrated in content transmission, becoming himself a type of content. IPG brightly points out that offering TV viewers the possibility to interact with the content that genuinely interests them triggers an almost guaranteed consumer mobilization. So how does this work, exactly? In a nutshell, these second screen apps enable consumers to exchange ideas about what is being transmitted through their main screens.
Thus, the TV-viewing experience is extended in one that not only provides marketers with immediate and solid feedback about consumer preferences, but one that also creates authentic groups to which these consumers voluntarily adhere. The core element that both triggers and allows for interactivity is the consumer’s standpoint towards the content on the main screen. Even more, this same element is what creates, for as long as viewers keep watching TV with their second screen apps engaged, a real virtual community. Needless to say, it seems that second screen apps aim at a content-consumer relationship that until now was, more or less, a mere ideal marketers aspired to.
Second Screen Apps**: New Prospects for Personalized Content Transmission**
While most user-engaging second screen apps put their bets on interactivity, Shazam brings a whole new strategy to the table, focusing more on data-collecting. Recently Shazam has become an always-on app that uses audio-code recognizing technology to scan for the content which users consume. Therefore, by using these data, marketers can get the chance to transmit personalized content per user / user groups and potentially increase their sales. Another great thing is that Shazam now recognizes music transmitted on TV, opening up new opportunities for its use in the second screen apps sector. Shazam Engagement Rate is another noteworthy function that automatically identifies the volume at which commercials are listened to, allowing for a better understanding of consumer trends and behaviours, while bringing personalized content transmission a step closer to becoming mainstream. These new features give insight into the ways that emerging second screen apps have paved the way for searching sustainable methods of supporting the new second screen marketing strategy. This means that optimizing content transmission is a crucial point that developers need to address. And indeed, as we have seen from the Shazam case, mechanisms making sure that content is efficiently integrated into second screen apps are underway.
Second Screen Apps and New Perspectives in App Development
Twitter and Shazam are, nonetheless, popular examples of platforms which have been recently transformed into second screen app development opportunities. This year, the topic’s getting hotter and hotter and consumers seem really enthusiastic about the new way of watching TV. So, we see that there’s no shortage of opportunities, whether we have app developers, marketers or consumers in mind. What we need to bear in mind is that second screen apps bring forth a whole new TV-viewing dimension – and along with it, a whole new field of app development perspectives.
