Interactive ads lift awareness and purchase intent
December 6, 2011
Canoe Ventures, the advanced television joint venture of the leading cable companies in the US, has released a white paper featuring the aggregate results from a series of brand-research studies accompanying in-market Request for Information (RFI) ITV campaigns that Canoe has enabled. RFI, an in-ad interactive application that enhances traditional TV advertising, opens a dialogue between brands and viewers and lets marketers actively engage viewers with offers to receive brand and product information, samples or coupons by using their remote control.
The studies gauged the efficacy of interactive offers presented as an overlay to television advertising in driving a variety of key branding metrics. Each study involved two groups of viewers – one watching commercials enhanced with RFI (test group) and another watching the same commercial without the RFI overlay (control group).
The research confirms RFI is both an effective direct marketing tool and a brand-building mechanism. The presence of RFI positively impacted a variety of key brand metrics among all viewers exposed to it, regardless of whether the viewer interacted with the overlay or not. Brand metrics positively impacted included:
– 26 per cent increase in unaided ad awareness between test and control groups
– 23 per cent increase in unaided brand awareness between test and control groups
– 28 per cent increase in viewer purchase intent between test and control groups
“These findings highlight the efficacy of RFI as a branding tool and provide incremental learning on the impact of advanced television advertising,” said Kathy Timko, Chief Executive Officer of Canoe. “With Canoe’s national ITV platform now reaching more than 25 million homes on select networks, and with national advertisers initiating campaigns, the viewer experience is changing. As TV evolves, it’s critical for everyone who does business on television to participate and cultivate learning. Canoe will continue to share insights to support this goal.”
The studies are part of the company’s ongoing efforts to drive the adoption of ITV by consumers and to demonstrate ITV’s impact. On behalf of the cable industry, Canoe earlier this year published user and implementation guidelines for a consumer-facing brand for ITV coined ExpandTV. Via use of the ExpandTV brand, cable operators, networks and advertisers are able to grow consumer use of ITV through greater awareness.