Heading in to CES 2012 a topic of particular interest to the Consumer Electronic and Digital Industries is the rise of tablets and how they fit into the device ecosystem. From a publisher and marketers perspective should we treat tablets as smartphones, given they both share an app-centric engagement model? These questions and more are being tackled at the SmartPhone and Tablet Conference - Digital Hollywood CES where I was fortunate enough to attend the panel, ‘The Smartphone – Tablet Economy, Apps, Devices, Commerce – the Consumer Obsession’.

Given the rapid growth of SmartPhone and Tablet usage in the consumer marketplace both publishers and marketers realize the need to develop and/or revise their Mobile (SmartPhone/Tablet) strategy. The panelists agree that a foundational step in this process is understanding device context, meaning the nuanced manner in which our audience (consumers) relate to the myriad of screens they interact with in a given day, i.e. TV, PC, Phone, Tablet, etc.

Dan Heaf, Digital Director at the BBC summed it up best by stating, ‘..the context is different, the interactions different between devices and screens. Those that understand that are poised to succeed.’

This fundamental understanding should then inform a couple of basic application and/or advertising design principles which are: front-end simplicity and rich, immersive experiences.

Simplicity: Peter Phillips, SVP & GM of the Digital Media Group at Marvel raised the point by stating that front-end simplicity is a design principal that Marvel strives for. Let’s be clear, this is from the end-user/consumer perspective, developing and building high quality applications can be extremely complex on the back-end, however that complexity needs to resolve itself in an intuitive front-end which users can pick up and navigate with ease.

Rich Experience: Given that consumers are becoming increasingly savvy and the sheer number of applications available have proliferated an ‘arms race’ is brewing where innovation is occurring at a rapid pace. Therefore publishers and marketers need to understand that, ‘Rich user experiences, trumps all’ as summed up by Gary Brotman, Director and Head of Marketing at Qualcomm.

Now once we understand device context, that nuanced relationship consumers have with their devices, even between tablets/smartphones, one can begin building their application (or app advertising) development strategy, which at the most basic level should strive for simplicity and rich experiences optimized for the screen/device. What is deemed ‘simple’ on a tablet may turn to ‘frustrating’ on the smaller screen of the smartphone, etc.

Personally I agree with the panelists, this framework of fundamentally identifying how device/screen context matters to our audience should inform all our activities as publishers and marketers across the digital ecosystem, beyond SmartPhones and Tablets in isolation. Therefore wanted to leave you with a study we conducted to understand device context in Jungian archetypes, ‘Meet the Screens’, hit this link for the findings.

Adee Wada – Microsoft Advertising