Do you play on your phone, tablet, or computer during TV commercials?
Of course you do, and you’re not alone. In fact, over half of Americans are “dual screening,” according to Nielsen.
The problem for advertisers is that their expensive commercials are no longer being seen by a large enough audience, forcing them to search for other solutions to earn your attention.
Advertisers have tried combating this dual screen attention problem by including hashtags or social calls to action in their commercials in the hopes of generating more social conversation. In fact, 57 percent of this year’s Super Bowl commercials included hashtags.
But a hashtag or cliffhanger can’t be effective if the viewer isn’t watching the commercial in the first place.
Xaxis Sync has developed new technology that will enable brands’ TV ads to actually “follow” you to your second screen.
This new multi-screen technology will allow advertisers to send complementary ads to your phone while you watch TV. Yes, that means you’ll be targeted with an ad on your phone (or tablet or computer) for the same product as the commercial you’re avoiding.
We can run from these ads, but soon we won’t be able to hide from them anymore.
The important lesson for brands is not to take this new power to “interrupt” potential customers for granted. After all, an ineffective ad is an ineffective ad.
If advertisers share promotional content that’s simply not compelling, we’ll just learn to tune that out as well. Case in point: do you even “see” the right column of your screen when you’re on Facebook anymore?
What do you think? Is this new technology overly intrusive? Or will it be an effective tool for advertisers?
