ITV to launch mobile couponing
ITV is to launch a service offering viewers ‘mobile coupons’ linked to products in TV ads, and has unveiled a little more about its revenue strategy for the upcoming ITV Broadband portal.
The first deal, being launched through a partnership with Eagle Eye Solutions, will see short codes run in commercials that allow viewers to get a ‘mobile coupon’ that can be redeemed at retail outlets.
The technology uses existing credit card and ‘chip and pin’ readers in shops that somehow links through to Eagle Eye’s systems, so perhaps no major barriers to getting it up and running there then.
The technology is in place, now lets see if any advertisers and retailers take it up.
You can read more at Eagle Eye’s press release on the news.
From that very press release:
ITV fully expect that the signing of this partnership will revolutionise the way that brands and retailers advertise and interact with their customers through traditional ITV routes and are currently looking for retail partners to join the service.
Careful, careful.
This looks like a rather smart service offering. You’re simply sent an eight digit code, you type it into the POS in the shop and bish bash bosh, you’ve got your buy-one-free voucher redeemed.
The key issue, as far as I see it, is that right now, air-head media buyers — everyone and their dog — are playing with ratings that gloss over the realities. Did 16 million people ACTUALLY watch that TV show last night? Did 1 million? How many of them watched the whole show? How many of them actually saw the advert and could be arsed to text in?
Whilst I am overwhelmingly in favour of this type of feedback loop, I have serious problems with biting the hand that feeds-and-doesn’t-know-any-better. It’s all guessing. You blow the money. You hopefully see an increase in sales. Everyone’s a winner.
But if you can measure it. If you can ACTUALLY measure the response to that £500,000 ad-spend in terms of people redeeming the voucher… those really nice Soho offices filled with creatives begin to look reaaaaaally expensive when 14 people ‘responded’ to your sponsorship of Lost last night.
You can start doing interesting sums like, ‘it would have been quicker to pick 14 existing customers and give them each £10k than do that advert last night.’
Once there’s a watertight way to measure advertising — with this sort of rather effective tool — I think it runs the risk of being shunned, ridiculed and ignored by vast swathes of the industry lest anyone actually notice a lot of ’em aren’t really wearing any clothes.
As Jared Spool deftly quotes on his Brain Sparks blog:
In fact, if you talk to anyone in the advertising business, they can recite the joke often attributed to Philadelphia merchant John Wannamaker: ‘I know half my advertising budget is wasted. The trouble is I don’t know which half.â€Â
Super use of technology I reckon.
