One of the biggest advertising buzzwords to emerge out of the digital era -- "engagement" -- has a lot of loaded implications. In an advertiser's ideal world, engagement would be as natural as breathing -- inviting a potential consumer to shift from brand familiarity to brand interactivity, inching toward the point of purchase or, even better, the level of word-of-mouth ambassador.
While there are many strategies for capturing the magic of engagement, the world of the looks to be the most promising. Just think about it: When was the last time you were without your smartphone or computer, especially while lounging at home in front of the television? Second-screen innovation naturally promotes a higher level of engagement, encouraging users to interact with brands via exclusive content or media. And many advertisers and media agencies know the value of that engagement -- not to mention companies looking to raise brand awareness or drive sales.
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"People have been open to the possibility of the measurements," says Dean Donaldson, global head of media innovation at . "They're looking for real-time -- how many requests and how many comments we're getting."
But the big question remains: Is second screen the holy grail of interactive advertisement, or is it all hat and no cattle? Mashable spoke with Donaldson and other experts to dissect case studies for second-screen advertising to determine just how important the technique is to modern advertising.
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For the Ad Agency
It's the advertiser's role to develop proper vehicles that push the second screen to the forefront and entice audiences to interact. It's easier said than done, especially when you consider the challenges of getting audiences to heed calls to action. However, according to Donaldson, the first step toward engagement has already been taken because of the nature of our modern viewing habits.
"We can talk about television being accessed by multiple screens, and therefore the need to advertise on multiple screens equally follows suit -- but that doesn't speak to the mediums working together," says Donaldson. "The fact is that when you're sitting in front of your television at home, we're seeing data as high as 70% or 80% that we're using a smartphone or tablet while watching a television daily."
DG/Mediamind is innovating to tap into users who are active on second screens during television -- especially when that user is interested in gleaning information from the show and looking up content on the web. Recently, Mediamind has been packaging specialized ad serving programs that specifically work for a TV company's mobile app. In short, when a user turns on the app, the server pushes relevant advertisements that are based on the television program at hand -- effectively mitigating the challenges that arise when motivating a potential customer to take the next step to engagement. Instead of putting the onus on the viewer to take a step toward second-screen extras and ecommerce platforms, the company has developed an app that delivers carefully timed and synchronized pushes of content while a user is watching television. Donaldson says the advertisements can be controlled at a core level with the broadcasting system, and they can provide amazing depth to already-present advertisements.
"We have ways of streamlining that process and help advertisers by saying, 'Look, it's not just about seeing the car. They can see the car, spin the car around, see what it looks like in their favorite cover, see what their local dealer is, see what special offers are near where they're located and book a test drive without ever going to your website because it's there in the app,'" Donaldson explains.
Of course, bringing the content to the audience is one way to increase that ever-elusive engagement level and even perhaps move them to the point of purchase. Donaldson says that while the system has been implemented in just a few campaigns, including the UK's Million Pound Drop, feedback has been very positive -- and promising.
"When you've got something like 150,000 consumers playing Million Pound Drop at home, nearly 20% watched the full three-minute video we pushed to them on their laptop," Donaldson says. "Three minutes is a long time!"
For the Product
The product is theoretically the most important piece of developing a thorough multi-screen experience. After all, what's the point of an engaging second-screen tie-in if it doesn't drive a sale? It's not an easy feat, especially for a soup-to-nuts boutique ad firm, like .
"The challenge is really attention span and options," says Frank O'Brien, CEO of Conversation. "With attention span, the creativity in advertising has gotten lost to an extent because people aren't willing to invest 30 seconds to watch a TV spot or in some cases three seconds to view a banner ad. Everything has become hyper-targeted, and there's no option to do something other than a commercial."
It's the agency's creativity that captured attention on AMC's , wowing the company with its "Year of Pop" campaign, which integrates interactivity with not only multiple screens, but the physical world. Now in its roll-out process, O'Brien says the aim of the campaign is to create a long viral video, turning the notion of what makes viral upside down. Submitted video and photos, culled from point-of-sale areas in-store and outdoor areas for PopChips, will be condensed into a 30-second campaign spot to air on a major advertising playground, such as the .
"We'll send out an email and say, 'Hey, did you see yourself at the Super Bowl?'" O'Brien says. "They'll go online, find themselves in the video and proceed to share it out through social media saying, 'I was in a Super Bowl spot!'"
O'Brien says he's excited for the campaign because of its total integration of not only multiple screens, but the physical world as well. Instead of relying on an audience to simply move from the couch to the computer (or reach for a mobile device), the campaign makes participants ambassadors for the brand from the get-go with physical touchpoints and interactivity. From there, the engagement only increases further. But, it's not without its challenges.
"In a traditional sense, we hope we achieve the objectives of the brand," O'Brien says. "I think the toughest thing is getting people to take that action, because convergence from online to offline is very hard to get."
For Television
Yes, television needs the second screen, too. Instead of viewing calls to other screens as a deterrent to their product, channels are reaching for the second screen not only to keep the audience engaged in shows on TV but also to drive them to other properties. Game Show Network relies on the second screen to foster a symbiotic relationship between its television programs and its online gaming platform, . But even though the brand is unified, the channel faces challenges in fostering that bond with the website.
"We will do math and modeling to determine where we should best orchestrate the experience for fans of GSN, and we've found context is key," says Christian Meyer, SVP/GM of GSN digital. "When you're watching Wheel of Fortune, that game is what's promoted, so it's not always the case that you can take that cross-promotion message -- we've experimented."
In order to turn viewers into gamers, the channel has employed some novel techniques that utilize the resources that come from a fully cooperative TV platform. In addition to promoting prize packages and special tournaments on the channel, GSN has explored the world of play-along programs -- where users can tune in and engage in the game in real time or switch on at a special time for live engagement.
"Bingo Blitz is a game online that has a punctuation mark on television -- you can go and pick your cards online and then we draw live," explains Peter Blacklow, EVP of GSN digital. "That one has been successful partly because of the nature of asynchronous play. They can play and participate whenever it's convenient for them, and the tune-in is very sharp and crisp, so we can align around a specific objective."
Why all this drive toward online? For GSN, gaming is another valuable revenue stream. Blacklow says that an ideal use situation for GSN.com, a "risk and reward" gaming website, is to convert lean-forward users into engaged gamers and contestants. And in pushing them to the "risk and reward," Blacklow explains that it feeds into the primary monetization of the website, which is micro-transactions in the form of tokens. In short, GSN sees the operation a success from the ecommerce perspective.
"It's hard to get numbers in the 9 or 10 figures of consumers to do anything cross-platform," Meyer says. "But if you're in the business of ecommerce, and you're trying sell people on deeper engagement and monetize the eyeballs in a better way, you don't need as many people to make it a successful program."
This story originally published on Mashable .
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