The Couch Potato is Extinct

source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/the-couch-potato-is-extinct/50736/

The article sourced above talks about Mobile devices bringing the notion of "the couch potato" to extinction. The concept of people just sitting on the couch watching TV and not interacting with anything or anyone else is old and outdated. The article has plenty of stats to back this up, but the basic idea is that these days, smartphones & tablets make watching TV in isolation almost impossible. For example, when you are watching sports, don't you find yourself tweeting/facebooking/texting with your friends (or enemies) every time something major happens? Also, when you're watching a TV show, don't you find yourself surfing the web/texting/facebooking during commercial breaks? Also, have you ever watched a TV show or YouTube clip on your tablet or mobile phone, while you were away from home?

This shift in media consumption behavior towards multitasking across screens and consuming on the go, has big implications for the marketing ecosystem. The big challenge that this poses for traditional advertising agencies, is how to ensure that TV ads are disruptive and breakthrough enough to ensure that consumers who are watching at home will pay attention to them, instead of spending commercial breaks on their tablets or smartphones. The challenge that multi-device usage poses for media planning agencies, is how to ensure that enough resources are being allocated across devices to ensure that they are reaching as many viewers as possible. The opportunity that this poses for digital marketing firms, is to ensure that they have the right SEO/SEM, display ads, social presence, etc. in place to make a meaningful connection with the consumer who is searching for something on his mobile phone or passing the time watching a YouTube clip on his tablet. 

From a strategic perspective, one thing is clear about this trend towards multi-screen on-the-go usage: there will continue to be a misattribution problem when it comes to determining the effectiveness or utility of one marketing medium over the other. This means that marketers will have to accept not knowing whether their consumers responded to a TV commercial, internet banner ad, company website, social conversation, etc., because ultimately each of those channels ought to serve as complimentary touchpoints to one another. The most successful marketers of the future will not ask which of the various media channels is more effective than the other, but rather spend their time ensuring that all channels are being utilized in a way that maximizes the relevance of each touchpoint to the consumer at each point in the consumer's media consumption journey.