The recent MEC Multiscreen Study conducted by MEC on 5,000 internet users in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Russia shows that Internet users who are not using the web while watching TV are already a minority.

More than 90% of Romanians use the Internet while watching TV, and about 80% of them do so using their smartphones. In Russia, 86% of the respondents surf the web while watching TV, the figure dropping to 76% in the Czech Republic, 75% in Hungary, and 73% in Poland.

However, despite the large scale of this trend, only a fraction of the advertisers promoting themselves on television, also motivate audiences to visit their websites and/or social media pages to engage in further consumer interaction, reads the study.

In Romania, only 32% of the brands’ TV commercials direct viewers to online, and only 61% of them have a mobile website. These figures place Romania last among the countries surveyed.

“Television and internet account for 60% (Hungary) to nearly 80% (Poland and Romania) of the advertisers’ media budgets in the markets covered by the study. Therefore, a hefty portion of their return on investment in advertising depends on how effectively those media are used in campaigns. The multi-screening phenomenon, which has changed and enriched the way we watch television over the recent years, is clearly underrated in the strategies of the advertisers in the region,” said Anna Lubowska, MEC Chairman of CEE, Russia, Ukraine and CIS.

Find the entire survey here.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com