All TV ads are response ads

In the old days, there were two main types of TV advertising: brand and response. ‘Response’ campaigns set out single-mindedly to get you to call a number and typically took place during the week, in the daytime, in lower interest programmes and on smaller channels. It was all about efficient cost per response and acquisition. Brand campaigns were about creating long-term fame for the brand, reaching mass audiences and staying in their minds.

But things have changed thanks to the internet. Back in 2009, 40% of responses to TV campaigns happened by ‘phone; by 2013 this had dropped to about 12% because now the web catches responses and many people are watching TV with an internet-connected device to hand enabling them to react immediately to what they’ve seen.

The brand/response distinction has gradually eroded. Now all TV ads are response ads. They always were, of course, it is just that we can now see and capture the many, varied responses that all types of TV advertising create.

So our understanding of what constitutes a ‘response’ to a TV ad has changed. There are many different flavours, from calling the number or visiting the website through to commenting or sharing on social media. Any response generated from a TV ad is valuable, even if some are potentially harder to measure or not directly linked to a purchase.

This new response landscape is brimming with innovation. We now have a new model of TV advertising based on interaction, participation and action. The TV broadcasters have developed a host of interactive VoD ad formats – for example Ad Elect, which asks the user to choose which ad format they wish to watch, or Ad Link, which encourages viewers to share the ad via Facebook or Twitter – and various synchronised apps have been launched by both the broadcasters and developers such as Zeebox and Shazam which give viewers the opportunity to chat, play, discover and buy as they watch linear TV.

A recent example of response innovation is Intel’s partnership with ITV and X Factor which encouraged viewers to create their own Christmas messages via Shazam in one ad break which were then edited and shown back to viewers in a later ad break. This dual screen activity saw 17,000 Shazam tags with a 66% interaction rate and increased purchase consideration from 13% to 24%.

But such innovations do not mean that more ‘traditional’ direct response TV approaches are redundant – far from it. For example, dieting brand Diet Chef created a TV campaign which demonstrated how its service worked and then, through econometric analysis, attributed ecommerce, telephony responses and conversions. It led to a 31% increase in response and a 22% decrease in overall cost per acquisition year on year and doubled brand awareness.

What has changed is the recognition that the internet has opened up so many new pathways for response to TV advertising. The distance between watching a TV ad and purchase has evaporated; TV is now a point of sale medium.

By DMA guest blogger Leila Travis, Head of Planning, Thinkbox