Why Do TV Advertisers Continue to Overlook this Mobile Marketing Opportunity?
Not so long ago, tech industry observers guaranteed marketers that we’d soon get the best of both worlds on our TV screens, one that would allow consumers to view content on a big display from the comfort of the living room couch with the ability to interact with the content in a bi-directional “TV commerce” experience.
For advertisers, this meant the possibility of selling the clothes the actors are wearing on a popular TV show to viewers in real-time, or enabling consumers to order products from a commercial via a simple click of the button on their TV remote.
This sounded like a dream come true. A vast TV audience with the potential of responding to advertising in real-time without dialing an 800 number and speaking to a company representative.
The dream didn’t quite come to pass, unfortunately. “Smart TVs” may come to mind but most consumers just use its capabilities for viewing YouTube videos online and binge-watching shows on popular over-the-top (OTT) services like Netflix. Very little of the “smart TV” has been transformative in meeting the promise of interactive TV advertising.
The answer is at your fingertips
But don’t look now – the answer has been staring you right in the face for years, and you’ve been staring back.
According to Deloitte, a large percentage of U.S. consumers watch TV with their smartphones within arm’s reach. Most of us these days multi-task while watching TV – checking Facebook, emails or texts, or simply surfing the web to answer questions about the show or follow a Twitter feed.
So why aren’t TV advertisers and the media companies themselves trying to create a quick and easy connection between a consumer’s smartphone and the content currently playing on the TV? The simplest solution is offering SMS text codes, or common short codes as they’re known in the telecom industry.
