Twitter chief revenue officer Adam Bain confirmed yesterday that the company is working on an enhanced analytics ad offering for TV marketing campaigns.
Speaking on stage at Adobe’s annual marketing conference, Adobe Summit, Bain said the company has tapped Bluefin Labs, a social TV analytics firm is acquired last month for a reported $100 million, to help broadcasters and advertisers learn more about how consumers are engaging with shows and ads on Twitter.
Bluefin Labs primarily looks at what consumers are saying about programming, but it has also studied the conversation about ads, an area that could be a potential revenue driver for Twitter.
“Of course, there were a bunch of people having conversations about TV shows, but when the commercials came on TV, people were still there,” Bain said. “They were still having conversations about what they were seeing.”
As more broadcasters aim to create buzz about their shows on social media, many are turning to Twitter to help them amplify the effect of their TV ads. Bain cited several examples of campaigns Twitter worked on with marketers, including a promotion for Prometheus in the U.K. last May that prompted viewers to use the hashtag #AreYouSeeingThis and then played back several tweets during the next commercial break.
“We’ve got a really interesting relationship with TV,” Bain said. “It used to be a water cooler moment the next day, now because it’s a public platform that water cooler moment is happening in real time. That’s why you see hashtags on air, it’s why you see Twitter integrations and LL Cool J continually calling out to Twitter during the Grammy Awards.”
In December Twitter and Nielsen announced the “Nielsen Twitter TV rating,” a ratings metric that will show which programs drive the most conversation online when it debuts during the fall 2013 TV season.
By pairing together data from both TV and social, Bain said marketers can gain a more detailed understanding of what is driving consumer interest.
“We think TV is interesting because it has been left out traditional in the attribution model for digital,” he said. “We think the market is going to a more holistic model of attribution that involves TV, digital, mobile, Twitter, etc. so you can get a better picture of what the consumer is interested in and passionate about, which ultimately leads to a purchase.”
