Of those doing any form of ‘dual screening’ while watching TV in the past week, we also ask what they did. Nearly 1 in 5 now say they looked up information that was relevant to the TV show they were watching. And a remarkable 1 in 6 say they looked up information that was related to a TV ad they saw. (This is even higher among tablet owners.)

You can find out more about the Essential Eye by dropping me a line.

Stuart

When we first conducted an industry-wide VOD study a few years ago, we predicted that VOD would eventually migrate to the TV screen, ideally with EPG integration. But back then, TV VOD was only available to a small proportion of UK homes, predominantly via Virgin Media’s TV Catchup service.

But now the UK has reached a TV VOD tipping point. New data from our digital media tracker The Essential Eye shows that 51% of UK homes now has access to VOD on the TV screen, either through their set top box, or through OTT services from the likes of XBox Live and the Playstation Network.

YouView is entering a UK living room environment that is radically different to what it was a couple of years ago. And Google TV is only a few weeks behind. TV providers may not welcome the new competition, but for viewers the choice is greater than ever before.

So which are the UK’s ‘must-have’ devices? Predictably, it’s the iPhone and iPad at the top of the pile. But the Kindle and the Virgin TiVo box are next on the list.

If you want to find out more about the Essential Eye and what it can tell your business, give us a shout.

Technical note: Question asked for each device based on those aware of or owning the device. Figures in this analysis have been re-percentaged on the total sample, i.e. adults aged 16+.

Why is this important?

Of course consumers use PCs and laptops to watch TV programmes. But generally for specific programmes that were missed on TV, in relatively low volumes each week.

But we always felt that mainstream audiences wanted to watch catchup TV programmes on the TV screen. These latest figures prove that when they can, they do.

Here’s an appetizer: we asked mobile phone owners what they could do on their phones and what they’d like to be able to do (if they couldn’t already.)

Here are the Top 10 things they said they wanted to do: (‘I can’t do this, but I’d like to’, Essential Eye, March 2012.)

1. Recognise things through the camera (e.g. pictures) and tell me what they are (23%)
2. Pay for things by swiping my phone on a scanner (21%)
3. Find my location using GPS (21%)
4. Scan bar codes and use it to bring up information (21%)
5. Give me directions to where I want to go (20%)
6. Make cashless payments in a shop for things costing less than £15 (20%)
7. Translate things from one language to another (20%)
8. Give me directions to where I want to go (20%)
9. Recognise a song and tell me what it is (19%)
10. Receive promotions or vouchers to save money at places close to where I am (18%)

Conclusions:

• There’s a bright future for M:Commerce and cashless payments.
• Simple utility appeals to the next wave of smartphone adopters more than mobile internet / email / social media (we’ve heard that before somewhere) Mobile networks and handset manufacturers should focus on these benefits to drive the next wave of smartphone adoption.
• Shazam should be very excited.

More soon.

S

It paints a comprehensive picture of your target audience: what they’ve got, how they’re using it, what they see as beneficial and how they are changing their media consumption.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing all sorts of Essential Eye insights, but in the meantime you can get a quick overview here.

Stuart

Essential_Eye_Press_Release

Insight and the Art of Storytelling

Incidentally, we’ve been running freebie storytelling training for our clients recently. So if you’re one of our clients (or think you might be soon) and fancy some free storytelling training, give us a shout.

It’s also interesting that there’s so little reference to smartphones in this. The new Google TV interface can be controlled by an Android smartphone; the iPhone works very nicely as an Apple TV controller and allows us to set our Sky+ box from afar. We increasingly rely on our smartphones to control many of the other things that matter in our life. Isn’t it a logical next step – if only to reduce some of the clutter on our coffee tables? Discuss.