How brands benefit from synchronisation their engagement on Twitter and TV?
Most audiences engage with their mobile while watching television. There is always a second screen in play. This viewing pattern was earlier seen as a problem before someone decided deep-dive to understand the impact and use it to advantage.
Recently after the hugely debated but successful Volkswagen second screen impact, we are seeing brands engaging TV audience with simultaneously or synchronised activity on the second screen.
Volkswagen- The greatest Interception ever
Volkswagen “The Greatest Interception Ever,” asked its fans to tweet #VolvoContest, during other car brands’ Super Bowl commercials and nominate a friend or loved one to win a new Volvo XC60 luxury crossover. The brand said ‘While other car companies are showing you what matters to them… we want to know who inspires you, who loves you, who matters most to you.’
More interaction followed by Volkswagen asking selective tweets why they nominated someone and finally selecting five winners. It won at Cannes too, and the brand said ‘a nearly 70% sales lift attributable to the effort.’
Now, we have Goibibo with their GoCash campaign is wanting you to keep the app open and Vodafone wants you to tweet during the breaks in IPL match telecast. There are 45 breaks. 45 questions. 45 fantastic prizes every match and that may not be the end of it all. Many other brands want you to engage and interact with the two screens simultaneously.
The Second Screen effect.
Nielson study initiated by Twitter showed a moderate co-relation between people using Twitter while watching television and a higher brand favourability and purchase intent. These audiences pay more attention to the advertisements on TV than people watching only the TV.
It opens up an opportunity for brands to increase brand campaign effectiveness by engaging the audience on two screens simultaneously. It suggested that by synchronising TV and Social media intervention ( Twitter) and getting a second screen effect, the brand can get better results than running the campaign on both channels independently.
The second screen enhances the effectiveness of the first Screen.
Twitter went further with Neuro-Insight to understand how and what of this second screen impact neurologically. The experiment looked at engagement (the emotional connection between content and viewer) and memory (how information is encoded and stored). The study showed that adding twitter makes the TV experience more engaging and memorable. Twitter users were able to correctly recall slightly more TV ads than those watching TV only. These matched another such study conducted by Neuro-insight in Australia.
It observed that when the audience engagement with the TV programme dipped at some stage, the brain started looking for options and they switch to the second screen because they got bored or lost interest. They started tweeting about the show and the engagement than peaked while interacting with the personal device. And when they come back to the first screen (TV), they engage more actively- as the second screen has catalysed their mood, and they are interacting at a deeper level.
It argues that Twitter provides incremental reach and more with the first view as the audience is most engaged when they are start scrolling through the content. It helps to reach to the younger audience primarily in the 18-24 year band. And this guided audience allows for higher on-target reach in comparison to other media with a more broad-based audience.
Time for the brands to seriously relook at their social and TV campaign alignments and maybe reap enhanced benefits. Till then, happy tweeting.
BLOG/31/2018
