Marketing Communications

516 CHAPTER 15 E-COMMUNICATION

Because of the existence of on-screen applications, TV advertising needs to be seen in another, more social,

perspective. Through these applications the consumers can discuss and appraise commercials at the same time as

they are watching them. Viewers will increasingly rely on the opinions of others before they discover for themselves

advertiser funded programming, sponsored web shows and branded online video, all accessible through their con-

nected TV. Therefore advertisers need to rethink the content of their campaigns and run social ads.

For social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, advertising is their main revenue source. Facebook aims to tap

the $180 billion worldwide TV advertising spend. Once Facebook users are ‘liking’ a brand’s Facebook page, they

can then opt in to get commercial messages from this company, such as brand status updates, along with HD video

commercials.

Twitter focuses on brand communications via its sponsored messages (promoted tweets). These tweets, clearly

labelled ‘promoted’, are seen in the ‘ Trends’ section of the Twitter site and can be passed on to followers. Via

connected TV apps for Facebook or Twitter, viewers see the status updates or tweets, so also brand updates or

promoted tweets, on their TV screen, directly alongside TV programming and commercials.

A logical future development are apps that display whole Facebook pages, personally targeted display ads

or leads to video for TV shows and brands incorporating video. The screen space of connected TVs with browsers

will be divided between the broadcast commercials and sponsored programming, and compete for viewer atten-

tion with socially targeted advertising. This new more social way of advertising will transform the TV ad market

completely.^138

BUSINESS INSIGHT

How social TV influences the rules of TV advertising

Tweets about Lady Gaga peaked at 9200 per minute. Tweets were appearing on stage

during the show, via a screen 95 feet (29 m)wide.^136

Social TV is gaining relevance:^137

z Fox’s Family Guy has 41.5 million Facebook ‘likes’;

z ITV’s X-Factor attracted more than 58 000 tweets per day during the last series;

z BBC’s To p G e a r has 10.2 million Facebook ‘likes’;

z Glee accounted for 16% of all social media activity among the major US networks’

shows;

z 275 million Facebook users have ‘liked’ a TV show, and on average they like six;

z Twitter has more than 100 million active users.

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