Collective, a leading provider of multiscreen advertising solutions, currently works with 77 of the top 100 AdAge Advertisers and is a rumored IPO candidate. Its core product allows advertisers to reach their audiences no matter what device they’re looking at. This is especially crucial for TV advertisers because their audience continues to use second screen devices while watching programming.
To help capture this second screen audience, Twitter last year introduced TV targeting solutions in the form of promoted tweets. “For example, during a Coke commercial, Coke sends out promoted Tweets to reinforce its ad’s message,” Collective VP’s of Product Strategy Adam Harris wrote in a piece for The Ad Tech Press. “Or Pepsi sends promoted Tweets during the Coke commercial to disrupt its competitor’s message.” Harris also cited the following data: 84% of people are using second screen devices while watching TV, but only 15% of this group use social to discuss what they’re watching.
So how can advertisers reach the 85% of people who aren’t taking to social to discuss the show, but are instead surfing the web or using second screen apps? To help answer this, Lost Remote spoke with Harris.
Lost Remote: If social media advertising only reaches 15% of people engaged in second screen activity during a show, how do marketersreach the other 85%?
Adam Harris: It is easy for marketers to reach the missing 85% from the twitter experience. At Collective, we built a product called TV Accelerator that allows us to specifically target audiences that watch television across all of their devices and all formats. Our latest innovation allows us to message to that audience at nearly the same time as the commercial on television. The result is a highly coordinated campaign that messages to 100% of a TV audience on all of their devices.
LR: How is Collective able to target not only the second screen, but additional screens that people are increasingly using while watching TV?
Harris: Collective has an audience database with 230 million unique online user profiles. Once we onboard offline data, including television data, we are able to utilize that data to target any digital device utilized for a coviewing experience. In short, if it connects to the internet, we can target audiences on it.
LR: What is an example of a client that’s seen demonstrable success using Collective to reach audiences across screens?
Harris: For one automotive brand, we successfully conquested a competitors TV schedule where we lowered brand awareness of that competitor by over 10%. For another insurance client, we improved their incremental reach versus television by significant amount. We also lowered the cost per lead for another insurance client from 264 dollars per lead with TV alone to close to $12 when mixing in digital appropriately. We’ve increased tune in intent for several major broadcast television shows as well.
LR: How do you see the TV, social, and digital advertising evolving and converging in the next five years?
Harris: Companies are working toward convergence and over the next five years I expect to see increased coordination of messaging across all devices. Ultimately, the advertiser will be able to take over the consumer’s home while watching television with the same coordinated story whether on their TV screen, mobile phone, tablet, PC, smart watch or Google Glass. The key will be to ensure that the messaging is consistent and that the story makes sense for the medium.