ITV Commercial has revealed results from a number of successful ad campaigns within The X Factor app 2013. Key findings show that interactive content is the most effective way to engage second screen users and drive post-advertising actions.

ITV launched its Ad Sync format in 2012, creating a new interactive ad format which allows viewers to interact with a brand and to explore more about the advertisers’ products or services via their second screens. Throughout the tenth series of The X Factor, approximately 18 advertisers placed campaigns using the Ad Sync format to engage consumers, achieving an impressive 14.3 per cent average click through rate and 43 per cent average engagement. Alongside the highly-successful Domino’s partnership, ITV identified three stand-out creatives throughout the series, namely ASDA, Strepsils and Specsavers:

• The ASDA ad invited users to build their very own snowman, with an array of buttons, hats, scarves and noses to choose from. When its snowman was complete, users were asked to share their creation on social media and enter a competition for their chance to win a £500 Christmas shop at ASDA. The exciting creative achieved engagement rates of over 54 per cent, with 20 per cent clicking through to ASDA’s site. Over 36,000 snowmen were created and 14 per cent of these creations were shared on social media.
•  Strepsils used the Ad Sync format to drive viewers to a mini-game hosted on its site in which viewers could play for a chance to win prizes from The X Factor. The game-led creative achieved the highest click-through rate of the series at 37.7 per cent.
•  Specsavers used the Ad Sync format to offer customers the opportunity to delve deeper into its ad content, incorporating the back-stories of the characters that appear within the Specsavers TV spot. The creative achieved a very successful click-through rate of 29 per cent.

ITV’s Ad Sync activity has highlighted the key ingredients that contribute to the extraordinary success of viewer participation within a synchronised ad format appearing on the second screen, these include:

• An immersive, full-screen experience with no barriers to entry,

• An interactive context whereby users actively engage with the show content and are therefore more likely to interact with compelling advertising content,

• The ability for mass participation,

• An advertising experience that is not overly intrusive as the ads are limited to the duration of the broadcast ad breaks.

Jon Block, Controller of Commercial Digital Products at ITV, said that through work with advertisers across the Ad Sync product, the broadcaster had demonstrated the ideal partnership between quality creative and an engaged play-along audience to create highly successful user engagement and click-through rates. “Our audience’s dual-screen behaviour is unlocking a whole new dimension to broadcast advertising. These devices are enabling TV advertisers to start a two-way conversation with their consumers, complimenting the mass awareness of TV with tailored brand experiences provided by the devices in their hand.”

ITV works closely with production partners FremantleMediaUK, and app specialist Tellybug, on The X Factor app – over 1.5 million users downloaded The X Factor app last series, up over 50 per cent year on year.

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