• by Larry Dobrow , April 2, 2004

Yet another study on simultaneous media usage has confirmed what many media pros have long suspected: audiences continue to inhale several media at once, even at work. Conducted by the Mobium Creative Group, the survey found that as many as 83 percent of business professionals media-multitask while performing activities related to their jobs.

The report arrives on the heels of a similar study conducted by Agora/BIGresearch. Unveiled a mere eight days ago, the report revealed that 70 percent of media users try at one time or another to absorb two or more forms of media at once.

"We had a theory going in: if consumers as a whole were media-multitasking that much, businesspeople were probably doing it even more," says Mobium partner Gordon Hochhalter. "But we didn't think the numbers would be as high as they were." Adds fellow Mobium partner Guy Gangi: "On the consumer side, [simultaneous usage] might be done out of boredom--'this TV show sucks--let me look at a magazine.' But in the context of getting something else done at work, 80 percent is pretty amazing."

The study found that 83 percent of businesspeople who are reading a newspaper are simultaneously engaged with another medium (usually TV or radio). The activity least likely to be accompanied by a second or third medium? Going through mail or memos, during which "only" 40 percent of businesspeople are engaged elsewhere.

While the Mobium study didn't break out simultaneous media usage by profession, the researchers asked marketing types if they are accounting for the effects of it when assessing media buys and budgets. Amazingly, less than 40 percent of respondents said they were. "That's quite interesting, considering that what they do is called 'planning,'" Gangi cracks.

Buyers and planners should start accounting for media-multitasking sooner rather than later, Hochhalter adds. "There's a whole new generation being spewed out into the world by universities, and multitasking is a way of life for them. Until media people figure this out, they won't be communicating with these people very effectively," he says.

The media community might also want to investigate the differences between so-called "foreground" and "background" media, and attempt to use the latter to direct business pros to the former. With 80 percent of respondents noting that they pay more attention to one of the simultaneously ingested media than the other, this distinction could prove crucial.

"The background medium tends to be the more intrusive medium--like TV or radio, where people don't get to select what the content is. The foreground medium is the one where they have more control, which supports our theory that marketing in the future is going to be about dialogues more than monologues," Gangi explains.

Asked to predict the evolution of simultaneous media usage, both Gangi and Hochhalter dismiss the possibility that networks or any other media entity might be able to do something to reverse the trend. "There will be media forms that mutate out of this, but I don't think anybody has any clue what they are just yet," Hochhalter says.

Next up for Mobium: continued work on a magazine/Web prototype that they've described as an "interactivezine." "Interactivity and feedback--that's the direction we're all moving in," Gangi allows.