Sharethrough Announces New CTV Ad Enhancements to Help Brands Drive Viewer Attention and Performance
Sharethrough, one of the top global independent omnichannel ad exchanges, has unveiled two CTV ad enhancements that will help brands drive viewer attention and performance as we head into the holiday shopping and prime sports seasons – countdown overlays and sports tickers:
Countdown overlays: As consumers grapple with rising inflation, brands are competing to stand out in what is shaping up to be a highly competitive holiday shopping season. Sharethrough’s countdown overlay will help brands draw attention to limited-time offers, such as product launches and deals. For example, a countdown can be added at the bottom of an ad for a product a brand is promoting for the holiday shopping season, counting down the days until a limited-time discount expires.
Sports tickers: With the prime sports season taking form, brands will be able to add a sports ticker to ads, which will display the latest scores and upcoming games for all major sports leagues of the advertiser’s choosing.
The two new enhancements were created based on the results of a Sharethrough study, which found that 76% of viewers tune out of commercial breaks by muting their television, leaving the room, changing the channel, or looking at something on their phone. The enhancements allow brands to provide consumers with information that is typically searched for from their phones, pivoting user attention back to the ad.
Curt Larson, Chief Product Officer, highlighted a few promising data points that came out of their research related to improved attention and retention of CTV ads when they have enhancements such as countdown tickers, sports scores, and QR codes -- especially regarding the data relevant to the tendency of viewers to mute their devices while commercials play.
"Our research found that consumers are 52% more likely to pay attention to CTV ads if they include any type of useful content alongside an ad such as sports scores, weather, news, countdown, etc.," Larson says. "Specifically for the Countdown Overlay, TV watchers were 43% more likely to remember the date of the sale or launch. So while we couldn’t measure if people unmuted their TV, the fact that a countdown clock draws their attention and increases their likelihood of remembering the promotion date seems to imply that even if they didn’t have the sound on they still were likely to pay attention enough to remember the date."
When asked if the study garnered any demographic information regarding what types of products being advertised performed best when a sports ticker is included (i.e. what are the most relevant ads to sports fans, and what are the breakdowns with age/gender that respond best to the tickers), Larson says, "While we did not see any glaring differences in the type of product advertised, we did see that sports fans in the 16-24 age range were 21% more likely to pay attention than average and the 55+ age range was 27% less likely to pay attention. Ultimately, we think keying an enhancement like the sports ticker off what the user is watching may be more powerful than off who the advertiser is. We’ll be exploring that relevance more going forward."