An unclicked interactive ad still turns
heads.
Canoe Ventures, looking to prove to Madison Avenue that
ITV ads are worth paying for, released results of a series of
studies showing that ads with request-for-information overlays
boost consumer
awareness and
purchase intent
— even if viewers
don’t actually click
on them.
New York-based
Canoe, owned by
the six largest U.S.
cable companies,
worked with several
marketers to
study the effect of
ITV on their campaigns.
The studies, conducted
by E-Poll Market Research, gauged the efficacy of interactive
offers presented as an overlay to TV advertising
in driving a variety of key branding metrics. Each study involved
two groups of viewers — one watching commercials
enhanced with RFI (the test group) and another watching the
same spot without the RFI overlay (the control group).
The results — outlined in a Canoe white paper, “Understanding
the Brand Efficacy of RFI” — showed that RFIs
increase unaided ad awareness 26% and unaided brand
awareness 23% compared with the non-RFI control group.
Moreover, 28% more viewers who saw ITV spots said the
ad made them want to buy the brand (purchase intent) and
19% more said they were likely to look for it at the point of sale.
RFI overlays increased aided brand awareness by 2% and aided
ad awareness by 9%, versus viewers in the control group.
“These findings highlight the efficacy of RFI as a branding
tool and provide incremental learning on the impact of advanced
television advertising,” Canoe CEO Kathy Timko said.
Canoe did not identify which advertisers it worked with
on the studies, nor would the company disclose how many
participated. The analysis compared reactions to the same
ads between viewers in households with EBIF-enabled settops
and cable households without interactive
capabilities.
Canoe provides an RFI advertising product
that reaches as many as 25 million cable households.
The interactive ads are sold by six national
networks: AMC, Bravo, Discovery Channel, E!,
History and Style. The company will soon add
USA Network to the RFI mix.
In a separate study by Canoe and the Association
of National Advertisers released in October,
18% of “TV enthusiasts” age 18-49 opted to
receive additional info after viewing an ITV spot.
Five large advertisers — Fidelity, GlaxoSmith-
Kline, Honda, Kimberly-Clark and State Farm
— were the first ANA members to participate
in the study. The “CEE MEE” research by Canoe
and the ANA is designed to capture the “Connection, Emotion
and Experience” (CEE) of interactive television viewers
and correlate that with “Measurement, Efficiency and Engagement”
(MEE) metrics.
This summer, the cable industry — led by Canoe — published
user and implementation guidelines for the Expand-
TV consumer-facing brand.
SHINIER SPOTS
Compared with the same ads without an
interactive overlay, RFIs were found to increase:
unaided ad awareness by 26%
unaided brand awareness by 23%
purchase intent by 28%
aided ad recall by 9%
aided brand recall by 2%
SOURCE: Canoe Ventures
