MANILA: Digital consumers in the Philippines are increasingly using more than one screen and video ads are proving an effective means of promoting product search and purchase, research has shown.

The Nielsen Cross-Platform report, which looks at digital video consumption by internet users across screens, found that 96% of online Filipinos used two screens simultaneously and 80% had used three at the same time.

"The swift integration of connected devices into the lives of consumers is instrumental in the shift in the consumption of media, which includes multi-screening as a prevalent behaviour," said Stuart Jamieson, managing director of Nielsen Philippines, in remarks reported by Marketing Interactive.

He added that this was opening up major new opportunities for brands to connect with consumers.

Viewing online video, for example, is now a common pastime for digital consumers in the Philippines, with 85% watching online videos at least weekly, and more than seven in ten report watching TV content and movies via online sources.

They are also responding in large number to advertising they see there, although the choice of device can make a significant difference to their reactions.

The bigger screens of laptops and PCs are, not surprisingly, the most popular device used to view video on demand (89%). And fully 89% of digital consumers using these devices went on to search for an item seen within online video advertising, while 62% made a purchase as a result, according to Nielsen.

Viewing on mobile devices produced lower, albeit still respectable, figures: 67% were moved to search for an item after watching a video ad, while 49% completed a purchase.

Nielsen cautioned that the explosion in online media consumption was not replacing traditional media, with both TV viewership and radio listening having edged upwards over the course of the past year, while newspaper readership remained stable.

"People are using traditional media in union with the new media," Jamieson explained, whether that was accessing content online related to what was being watched on TV or accessing something else altogether.

"Dual screening behaviour is fragmented and thus, it has become increasingly more important to understand how people behave across different media," he concluded.

Data sourced from Marketing Interactive; additional content by Warc staff