Overcoming The Challenges of Multiscreen Ads – Social TV Advertising

Overcoming The challenges of  Multiscreen Ads – Social TV Advertising Part 4

In the last piece I went over a variety of ways in which to utilize social TV in to advertise and embrace new potential commercialization solutions for this growing landscape. What strikes me as the most compelling at current is theability to tie in all screens and create ad formats that extend beyond the reach of any individual elements. Like all great potentiation equations 1+1 can, and should, equal three. Especially when it comes to advertising. Advertisements that present a big screen emotive placement, and then sync an ad in real time on the addressable/interactive second screen is fantastically exciting and complex. (Even more exciting is never.no’s new Multiscreen ad product seen here.. “Sync” )

There is utmost potential to monetize synchronized second screen ad placements, but in current iterations there are challenges that need to be overcome. These challenges present a lot of barriers to brands, agencies and broadcasters. The fact of the matter is that viewers typically do not want to view, or for that matter, interact with an ad. I’ve possibly upset some members of the crowd here, but it’s true. That said, viewers do want to watch and interact with experiences that bring them intrinsic value. How we define value whether it’s something derived for entertainment, for the perception of control over content, or for needed information is cursory to the main point. This is why it is so important that before we just embrace multiscreen ad spots, we do so in ways that create consumer value, transcend the dull and dreary, and capture the minds and hearts of viewers. To do so we need to overcome the barriers

The Barriers:

Problem #1 Mortgage crisis:  Given the nature of human attention and focus, there is a good chance that having a synced dual ad placement can shift attentionfrom one ad format (or screen) to the other. Sure the second screen presents a great ad and it has captivated my viewer, but what about the potential of that highly emotive experience occurring on the big screen that my viewer forgot about? The one that has the ability to create intense recall,emotional responses and engagement? On the other hand, what happens if we have a great second screen interaction planned, but the first screen is more compelling? We have then lost the second screen element.

Any way we slice it, our audience’s attention can be mortgaged from one screen to the other. We never want this to happen. We never want to replace one ad spot for another. It’s ad waste and budget waste.

Problem #2- Losing viewers down the internet rabbit hole- If we lose the viewer’s attention, engagement elements will occur outside of the viewer’s first screen experience. We all know that one digital interaction can lend itself to getting lost in other Internet elements. I may have started at a micro site only to be led deeper into something unrelated on my second screen. Not a good thing for programming or further ads. I don’t want my watcher lost.

Solution: What we need to do is create ad formats that require dual screen attention and interactivity across both the TV and second screen in direct correlation with one another. We need calls to action that transcend simply displaying an ad on both screens, but also creates calls to action that elicits attention to both screens in order engage. We need engagement across dual screens.

We need to allow further interactivity and participative elements to close theloop on both screens. There is far more potential of a circular engagement,than the one-way activity of simply syncing an ad. We want to create interaction across both screens and have this interaction move in two ways:back and forth from each screen. This will prevent our viewer from no longer mortgaging one screen for the other, as well as keep our viewer fromgetting lost.

How to effectively sync ads:

1) Ad occurs on 1st screen followed by a perfectly timed, second screen sync.

2) Second Screen ad placement is directly interactive and addressable

3) Interactions or resulting data from the second screen can be tied back into the first screen in real time.

If we can engage this sort of methodology it means that we extend the life cycle of both the first and second screen placements while giving audiences a reason to stay tuned on both the emotive big screen and the addressable/interactive smaller screen. It also means that we have an engagement that calls for constant attention. Attention that can be brought right back into the programming. We are now cueing a social share that is based on deep engagement that can lead to further interaction; an engagement that can be seen directly, on both the big screen and the small one.

How do we do this? We allow the synced placement to have interactive elements- polling/voting/quizzing/gaming/ there are endless permutations. We proceed to bring forth the results of these interactions and their displayableelements from the second screen onto the first screen. Most intriguingly, we can allow ads and programming to have an interplay with one another. Advertising that is more directly integrated with programming means more interesting ad experiences and less skipping.

Stay tuned, we’ll soon delve deeper into Multiscreen interactive and synchronizable ads as well as some Connected TV Advertising chatter.