Results from the Sky View research panel of 20,000 satellite television subscribers in the UK indicate that 5.3 million or 69% of Sky digital households interacted with their television in the course of a month.
The research suggests that the average reach for an interactive television advertising campaign is around 200,000 households across the UK, although this varies considerably by advertiser.
The quality of the creative approach appears to play a large role in effectiveness, with strong video material unsurprisingly being more successful than textual presentation.
A Carlsberg campaign generated an estimated 429,000 household interactions, while Budweiser received 197,000 and a Carling commercial produced 105,000 interactions.
The response rate for the Carlsberg campaign was also higher at 1.5%, compared to 0.5% for Budweiser and 0.4% for Carling.
Across 10 campaigns in June 2006, the average time spent interacting was 136 seconds, although the three beer commercials significantly exceeded this at 258, 236 and 209 seconds respectively.
It seems that the brands attracted different individuals to interact, with only a 9% overlap between households interacting with both the Carlsberg and the Budweiser commercial.
“Interactive TV has been incredibly successful for our Carlsberg Old Lions
Campaign,” said Chris Lewis, marketing controller at Carlsberg in an enthusiastic testimonial. He said that the second-by-second click through measurement enabled by the Sky View panel will only help strengthen the medium and make it even more accountable.
This case study represents the first large-scale comparative research published on the effectiveness of interactive television advertising.