As more people watch TV along with their tablets, phones and laptops, the opportunity to monetize the second screen is growing fast. A new company is creating a network of second screen advertisements that appear while TV commercials air.
“We’re working on being the DoubleClick essentially of the second screen and TV companion space,” explains Seth Tapper, Founder and CEO of Second Screen Networks. “The secret sauce that we bring to the table is the ability to sync ads between what’s on TV and what’s on the second screen.”
Working in concert with publishers, Second Screen knows what TV show a user is watching. As a show airs, Second Screen “watches” the live stream, using its technology to recognize commercials inside the show as they air. “We are moment by moment fingerprinting the video streams,” Tapper explains. Live commercials are compared against Second Screen’s database. As advertisers sign up for the network, they’ll add their TV commercials into the growing database.
Second Screen is piloting their push ad network on the popular American Idol fan site AmericanIdolNet.com for the show’s finale this week. “We know everyone in there is watching American Idol,” Tapper tells Lost Remote. “When we see ads that we have matching digital creative for, we serve those ads” on the website.
For the Idol finale, Second Screen will be testing “poll style” rich media ads, but Tapper says his company is investing a lot of effort in evaluating what types of ads perform on second screen devices. “It’s pretty clear that just a straight banner ad isn’t the best idea,” he said. “It needs to be attractive and doesn’t throw people out of the experience they’re in.” Second Screen is able to push ads that sync not only with commercials, but also with the demographic profile of a given user.
For years, technology companies have worked to scale interactive advertising solutions on the TV screen, but a second screen approach may have the most potential to date. A study released last week discovered that 70% of iPad users and 68% of smart phone users watch TV while on their devices.
Tapper says Second Screen is talking with several publishers and advertisers and looking for more. Publishers with their own sales teams can sell into the network, as well. Tapper admits it’s going to take some time to reach scale, but advertisers “are pursuing us so it’s been a relatively easy pitch.”