As users reach for their mobile during advertisements, advertisers are wising up and looking at new ways to capitalise.

Don’t change that dial (or device)

With the expensive nature of TV ads, marketers are getting restless over the degrading impact of their TV spots, so Facebook looked at countries across the globe to understand TV and mobile attention spans.

Facebook examined viewing habits across the US, UK, Indonesia, Germany, France, and Brazil and discovered that 50% of users engage their phone during ad breaks, and 28% during the program itself.

What’s interesting is that US saw numbers as big as 41.5% during ad breaks and 47.2% during programming. Brazil contrasted the heaviest with 67.1% for ad breaks and 25.5% during programing.

What’s the weak link?

The numbers can be taken a couple different ways. America loves their phones and Brazil has awful commercials? The answer's in the averages across ages.

According to Facebook, “Participants ages 18-24 looked at their smartphones 60% of the time during ads…45 years and over did so 41% of the time.” And what are we turning to our phones for exactly?

The average break down suggests 43.1% is for social platforms, 15.5% messaging apps, 14.1% net browsing, 8.4% gaming, and 3.6% streaming.

Looks like advertisers are going to have to learn a new tandem approach to mobile/TV marketing.

Do you agree with Facebook’s findings? How do you use your phone when watching TV? Let us know in the comments below.