Figures for the recent Super BowlIXLVII provide strong evidence that TV and Twitter are working increasingly well together.
In an advertising blog, Twitter says there were over 24.9 million Tweets about the game and half time, while last season’s finale of Pretty Little Liars, as measured by Nielsen’s SocialGuide, had a record-breaking 1.9 million Tweets.
The blog adds that recent research commissioned by Twitter has found that hashtags drive significantly more earned media for brands. TV ads with hashtags had 42% more Tweets about the ads than those without hashtags.
The analysis, which looked at 63,000 comments in response to over 500 TV commercials across more than 100,000 TV airings, showed that not only do TV spots with hashtags drive more immediate conversation, they also trigger higher quality responses. In fact, comments in response to ads with hashtags were 18% more relevant to the messages communicated in the ad.
Working with Symphony Advanced Media, which passively tracks the media usage of thousands of people, Twitter found that use of Twitter while watching TV decreases an audience member’s likelihood to change the channel during ads. According to the Symphony analysis, TV viewers who are not multi-tasking on mobile devices tune away 17% of the time during ad breaks. This number drops to 13% when TV viewers are in fact multi-tasking on their phones. Among Twitter users, however, tune-away is the lowest: 8%. When viewers are on Twitter, they are more likely to view a brand’s TV spot.
Working with Millward Brown Digital, Twitter also conducted a study of more than 7,500 respondents to compare the impact of TV ads among people who watched TV with and without Twitter.
It found that viewers watching TV without a second-screen had an average TV ad recall of 40%. But among those using Twitter, ad recall was significantly higher: 53%. These viewers were also 13% more likely to discuss shows and 3% more likely to recommend programmess, making TV x Twitter a win/win for advertisers and networks alike.
Twitter also says its research “demonstrated a difference in the ability for a TV spot to help build a brand. We found that the impact of a TV commercial, as measured by a lift in brand favorability (the likelihood for a viewer to rate a brand ‘excellent’ on a five-point scale) was 7%. Among those viewers who were also tweeting, the lift was 18%. The lift in purchase intent was also higher among those tweeting: 30% compared to 16% in the TV-only group.
“We are excited by this new round of research which complements earlier findings that TV ad targeting boosts key brand metrics, and that Twitter lowers cost-per-acquisition and increases television ROI. We look forward to learning even more about the ways Twitter makes TV more engaging for viewers as it grows value for brands and TV networks”.
