Terrestrial Television with interactive “Events” make television commercials much more effective and accountable!

Over the last decade a consensus has formed among researchers that the power of television commercials to affect sales range from the insignificant to the non-existent.

Some of the most acclaimed and memorable ads of all times have been pretty awful at doing what they were created for i.e. sell products.

However that is not the fault of the TV stations, and it is unfair that they should now be the subject of such soul searching.

The commercials sometime look good and yes, viewers enjoy them, but make them buy the product?

Again, however this consensus is not the fault of the television industry.

When interactive “events” have been prepared together with a direct request for the viewer to pay particular attention to participating TV commercials, there has always been a substantial and measurable lift in brand awareness, message comprehension, which has always lead through to increases in sales.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of interactive programmes linked to terrestrial TV here are just some examples of the increases recorded by independent research.

Increases in television advertising awareness
as result of exposure to an interactive “Event”

Birds Eye Fish Fingers +11%
Sunsilk Shampoo +233%
Duracell Batteries +200%
Plumrose (Canned) Ham +400%
Sara Lee +83%
Sources: AGB, NOP, Gallup

These results are just the tip of the iceberg in demonstrating that terrestrial TV aligned with interactive events can produce staggering increases in all key measurements including sales.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, here’s what a current luminary of the advertising industry said recently "The conventional stuff won't ever go away," said Kate Bruges, the Marketing Director of J Walter Thompson.

"An awful lot of this unconventional stuff is the icing on the cake, that extra bit of media mileage. But it's never going to give you the cost-efficient mileage or get the message across consistently enough to a large enough number of people."

Well there are many clients who are at least making some attempt to disengage from what has been fed to them for all these years and with good reason.

The first rule of advertising, obviously, is to get noticed but that is easier said than done. In the advertising arena everyone is trying to get noticed and this results in clutter. When every adult person is bombarded with millions of advertising messages a year, yes millions, to acknowledge and act upon even a small proportion of these messages is a huge call on our time.

And time is the one irreplaceable commodity that more and more of us are guarding jealously.
However, marry terrestrial TV to interactive “Events” and all these old problems fade away, because terrestrial TV together with interactive “Events” fundamentally alter the customers perception of the commercial break, no longer is it regarded as an interruption, the advertising becomes a meaningful source of information. !


The writer produced the world’s first regularly scheduled interactive TV gameshow, in Manila, Philippines. The show ran for 13 weeks on Channel 7 and was sponsored by P&G. Paul has produced many interactive events linked to terrestrial TV and has a research investment that more than demonstrates that terrestrial TV linked to interactive “events” makes advertising much more cost effective and totally accountable.
Seeking more information please visit: http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot or contact Paul direct on paul.ashby@yahoo.com