Click On This

Back in 2019, Media Post reported that the MRC (Media Ratings Council) was having discussions with major industry stakeholders about letting the ‘Click’ founder as focus shifted to more meaningful engagement metrics. “The ad industry may be about to put another nail…possibly a final one…in the coffin of the click as a digital advertising metric”, it said. Click Through Rates were a cruel joke; a lie even. Power Point presenters would swiftly glaze over “.01%” before the audience (or even they themselves) snapped out of their digi-daze and realized it represented 1 in 10,000, not 1 in a 100. But it’s back, and evidently the TV remote is mightier than the mouse…

Based on a recent study by BrightLine (an interactive, shoppable Ad inserter) SND Publishing reported that “interactive ads on connected TV’s are transforming how audiences engage with commercials.” According to BrightLine, “there’s no turning back towards linear”. If that’s the case, then there’s no turning back for Big Brands that like CTV as an extension of their Linear campaigns, because it will just become synonymous with DR.

Running across Peacock, Hulu, ESPN, Max and select OEM FAST channels is a suit of clickable new ad units. Examples include:

• Jeff’s French Fry Dunk Challenge, where one can dunk a virtual French fry into their favorite dipping sauce.
• Peace Out Clothing, where one can scroll to browse styles.
• Hot Wheels – be the first to identify the color of Iron Mans vehicle.  

These ‘advergaming’, t-commerce and trivia Brand experiences “marks the start of a journey that mergers entertainment with engagement”, according to Stream TV Insider . Experience? Journey? Dude, I just want to eat a bowl of Captain Crunch on my couch and bask in the soft, warm glow of Different Strokes reruns.

In the same article, “BrightLine shared data that found its interactive ad units that can prompt a remote control click garnered an average engagement rate of 1.12%”. But that scoop came from a Magnite interview with Brightline’s VP of Global Sales, Dan Kelly, which made no mention of remote control clicks in the context of that statistic, saying only that “some of our research saw an example of ad units that reached an engagement rate of 1.12% on average.” Stream TV put their thumb on the interactive ad scale by including the part about prompting a remote control click. But trust me, they don’t want to go there because I suspect actual remote-control clicks hover closer to QR code scans of .02%.

This is nothing more than a once dying metric mutating and body snatching another. Indeed, SND confirms this. “Despite their potential, interactive ads have yet to fulfill their promise as a performance marketing tool. The study found that 95% of viewers prefer to add products to a cart for later rather than purchase immediately. This behavior indicates a preference for further research before buying, suggesting that CTV is still evolving as a direct response medium.”

NO further research needed folks. People like to vegetate in front of the TV, not interact with it.  ThinkBox conducted a study where they determined 8 need states which drove video viewing. 5 of them (or 62%) involved personal, not social motivators, like Escape, Indulge, Distract, Unwind and wanting something to Do. Most TV viewers don’t want to become users.

Are Interactive Ads going to single handedly “convert the remaining linear viewers to streaming” as they claim?   

I guess you’ll have to Click to find out…