Media Multitasking Makes It Harder For Marketers To Get Attention
By Anna Johnson on May 18th, 2010A study of adults in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain and Japan shows that ‘media multitasking’ – engaging in more than one form of media at once – is rampant among young adults worldwide.
Research by Survey Sampling International (SSI) has found that, in the U.S. alone, 60 percent of 18 – 34 year olds report talking to someone while texting on their mobile phones.
You might wonder if talking to someone whilst texting IS multitasking. If so: count yourself as one of the people who engages in media mulch-tasking!
Of course, media mulch-tasking has been around since people began talking whilst listening to background music (!) but a growing trend seems to be for people to divide their attention among more than one – in some cases, more than two – of today’s newer media technologies.
Says Mark Hardy, SSI’s Chief Strategy Officer and Managing Director, North America:
“Younger people consider it the norm to divide their attention among multiple media. They don’t even think of it as mulch-tasking but just as their regular way of communicating.”
The upshot for marketers is that it is generally becoming more difficult to gain audiences’ undivided attention.
“We now have more ways to reach people,” says Mark Hardy, “but their focus is often splintered.”
As marketers, either we work out how to get people’s undivided attention… or we work out how to get our messages across to people whose attention is divided… or both.
