By Stephanie Shkolnik (Digitaria, part of SoDA)

Decades ago, television was a delicate, communally appreciated experience predominantly used to broadcast mass market entertainment and important messages about current events.

Fast forward. It’s 2012 and social media has influenced the way people communicate and even consume television content.

According to EMarketer, 1.43 billion people will use social media in 2012, while 38.4% of the world's population will purchase smartphones. Discussion will spring up outside of the plot, diving into character traits, on-screen chemistry and feelings, shared in real time by the masses as if millions are people are in the same living room.

And that’s just the beginning of social television. Broadcasting can be extended on mobile devices, tablets and computers, as networks look to meet the ever-evolving SoLoMo consumer (social, local and mobile) at every touch point.

Networks are in the game

Networks that understand the value of real-time interaction are using the social graph to gauge effectiveness of their marketing dollars and understand audience behavior and interests. Shows such as American Idol have integrated pre-defined hashtags on television sets in the form of light watermarks, serving as call-to-actions for viewers to become a part of the discussion.

TV personalities are leveraging social to generate compelling user generated content. Jimmy Fallon features a ‘Late Night Hashtags’ segment related to current events to garner viewer participation – bringing ordinary people the opportunity to be mentioned on television. Fallon’s summer hashtag #WorstFamilyTrip resonated so well it trended worldwide in just 10 minutes.

Advertisers have also leveraged commercials to drive viewers to their social presence for awareness and promotional activities - often to publish user-generated content or participate in social experiences. According to Nielsen’s State of the Media in Sports (2011), brand recall was 33% higher for Super Bowl ads with a social media tag directing viewers to social channels.

TV specific social networks are on the rise

GetGlue allows people to check-in to television shows, movies, books and music to see what friends are watching and doing. Participants are rewarded in the form of both virtual and physical stickers, a gamificiation element that is integrated across screens, providing users with recommendations based on their interests to create the most relevant compelling experiences.

Leading up to the U.S. Game of Thrones premiere, 90,000 people checked into GetGlue, while 50,000 checked in during the actual premiere. As check-ins cross-populated to Twitter, social TV analytics provider BlueFins reported 60,000 comments were generated during the premier alone - signifying a direct correlation between viewership and social media engagement.

It doesn't stop at the TV screen

To maintain high levels of engagement when primetime television seasons conclude, networks are developing new ways to retain fan relationships through extensions of television. Gamificaiton is driving fan loyalty by rewarding social media interaction, as brands like CBS launch Fan Award programs online. Social enables viewer voting for their favorite categories such as "Best Use of Corpse,” where fans can simply participate through Facebook or Twitter hashtags to simplify the entry process.

Social television buzz is trackable

Alexander Daas, a luxury eyewear brand, went to market in Q4 of 2011, launching in conjunction with the American Music Awards. TV personality Jenny McCarthy wore the brand's eyeglasses on stage and within minutes sparked hundreds of conversations about her eyewear. By monitoring these discussions, the Alexander Daas team answered consumer and media questions leading to the introduction of the brand through social, generating nationwide awareness, sales and stronger partner relationships all tracked through traffic, sentiment and discussions.

Specialised services such as Social Guide provide comprehensive analysis of social television activity to extract insights and make them actionable - creating truly data driven opportunities based on fan interests.

Social television is increasingly becoming the norm.

By Sri Sharma

Online advertising, and paid search advertising in particular, has been held up as the ideal for marketing because of its measurability and the level of tracking it offers. Conversely, offline advertising is inherently difficult to track.

 TV advertising offers a fantastic medium for brands to reach a mass audience and raise awareness of the brand and its product range. However, until now it has not been able to provide the same level of measurability as online. The arrival of smart TVs is set to change that.

The launch of Google TV in the UK, expected over the next six months, along with Apple’s rumoured move to launch its own internet-enabled TVs, mark a pivotal moment for brands looking to recreate the level of measurement associated with online, in a world that was typically known as offline.

Enabling consumers to watch terrestrial TV, surf the web and interact with Apps for TV simultaneously, smart TVs will offer brands with new advertising forms that are more measurable than traditional TV advertising.

Tracking interactions not just awareness

The first additional metric smart TVs will be able to offer brands is the ability to track when a consumer actually interacts with their advert rather than just registering it. At launch, the two biggest opportunities to create and measure interactions are:

• In-TV app advertising – like the adverts you can see within apps on mobile, such as those from Admob, when TV apps launch, brands will be able to place adverts within the apps consumers interact with on their TVs
• Targeting on-demand content

Considering how many apps consumers already interact with on their mobiles, including apps for banking, socializing and accessing media, in-TV app advertising could be a huge opportunity for brands. Indeed, it is likely that TV apps will quickly become as integral to consumers’ daily lives as mobile apps are now.

Once TV apps have become part of the daily routine more consumers are likely to remain logged into the apps. This will enable brands to target consumers according to their psychographics as well as tracking the adverts that result in a click-through.

On-demand content offers a similar opportunity to enhance targeting based on consumer demographics as well as the type of content they are viewing. And, with twice as many people watching some programmes on catch-up as they do live (source: Virgin Media), on-demand content is already popular. The introduction of smart TVs, which will make access to on-demand content even easier, will only increase the consumption rate here.

For those brands looking for further proof here, you only need to look at the success brands have already seen on YouTube, which is likely to be a central element of Google TV’s strategy.  Indeed, in the work we did for The Perfume Shop that used YouTube’s targeting tool, YouTube advertising significantly outperformed traditional search. Integrating smart TV advertising data into other channels.

The second key opportunity smart TVs present brands with is the ability to transform the effectiveness of their multi-channel campaigns.

In the US, the Google TV platform enables brands to pass the data from Google TV through to Google Analytics. This allows them to draw conclusions as to the impact each advert had on other marketing channels, including paid search marketing and display advertising.

Whilst this is unlikely to reach the UK for a while after launch yet, it illustrates the potential to demonstrate the impact of TV more measurably. For example, brands will be able to see the impact of TV on other marketing channels in specific locations at particular times. At a time when budgets are coming under increasing pressure and marketers are being challenged to prove their worth to the Board, this can only be beneficial.

No-one knows yet what the rate of uptake will be for smart TVs. However, we do know that data remains key to transforming any brand’s marketing strategy. Smart TVs offer access to a unique data set that could have a dramatic impact on campaigns run across all channels. For those brands looking to harness this potential from day one, now is the time to invest in understanding what data can be accessed and how to use that data to make offline as measurable as online.

 Sri Sharma is the managing director at Net Media Planet

Some businesses are missing out on potential interactions because they are not leveraging the power of social media. Integration on various platforms should work to promote the brand and next week’s European edition of Social Media World Forum, London 27-28^th March, aims to examine the best ways to do this. Cream is a media partner for the event which features over 100 leading speakers in the digital marketing arenas, from Kevin Mathers, Head of Media Solutions at Google to Dan Patton, VP Digital Media at MTV UK and Ireland. Seminars and workshops cover social shopping, brand engagement and social TV for manufacturers and platform providers.

As Cream is a media partner to the Forum, Cream readers can benefit from a 15% discount on tickets at http://www.socialmedia-forum.com/europe/register/workshop-pass by entering the discount code CREAM15. 

Find more details about the event at http://www.socialmedia-forum.com/europe/

 See more innovative social media campaign case studies on Cream here.

Jean Dujardin is the toast of Hollywood since winning the Best Male Actor Oscar for The Artist last week. His latest film, Les Infidèles, is a series of sketches on male infidelity directed by Dujardin among others. It has come to light since the Oscars that a controversial scene was cut from the film. The scene in question featured Dujardin’s character in a New York hotel room entertaining his mistress; as he reassures his wife on the telephone that everything is fine, a plane can be seen crashing into the World Trade Center through the window behind him. The potential to offend Americans and consequently jeopardize Dujardin’s chances of winning the Oscar may have led to the scene being withdrawn from the film.

The posters for the film also caused controversy as they showed a suited Dujardin from the waist up, holding onto a bare woman’s legs with the tagline, “I’m just heading into a meeting”. This poster, one of four that appeared on Parisian billboards, was removed last month after calls of sexism. The distributor issued an apology.

Behind the News

The removal of the scene from the film and the posters’ disappearance prove that if an actor is to win the coveted Oscar, he has to have an unblemished reputation.

The posters could have been removed due to an awareness of American sensibilities and especially those of Academy voters. The French newspaper Le Parisien hinted that the poster could be detrimental to Dujardin’s Oscar hopes as America "doesn't joke about this kind of saucy picture". Although the posters were made for French audiences, coverage of the posters went global, showing vigilance on the part of the film industry is necessary if the publicity in one country is not to have a negative effect on its success elsewhere.

In order to secure an Oscar for France’s hottest leading man the makers of Les Infidèles withdrew the posters and the World Trade Center scene. This action illustrates the need for the film makers to submit to US rules of political correctness to ensure the success of the film in foreign markets.

By Dan Machen 

As Charlie Brooker’s C4 mini-series ‘Black Mirror’ recently dramatised - we are a nation increasingly addicted to mobile devices. Just look up on any bus or train journey to see how many people are eyes down for mobile content.

Tv the second screen

Recent research from the annual Childwise survey suggests this is only going to increase as digital natives grow up. Its survey of 2,770  5-16 year olds shows that not only are there now fewer TV sets in children’s bedrooms, but also amongst gadget use, the biggest growth area is mobile internet. This increasingly reflects an ‘on-demand’ culture that wants immediate access to information as a running commentary to what they are doing / watching / interested in buying.

This suggests that traditional 2 screen strategy – which typically sees the TV as primary and mobile devices as secondary – may become outdated. Mobile devices are becoming increasingly primary, with TV as initial stimuli, or as a backdrop for mobile-led interactive experiences.

So what should we do about this? We have proactively developed turnkey solutions to support interaction between existing broadcast campaigns and mobile devices - at the point of motivation. Below are 5 areas marketers should be focusing on today, to develop a 2 screen strategy fit for tomorrow...

1. Linking broadcast media to opportunity to purchase in a couple of clicks
2. Consolidating and adding value to social feeds around sponsored video content
3. Using broadcast to deliver inspiring promotional marketing – e.g. take Olympics tickets from the TV
4. Delivering updated content in real time, as a reaction to live events
5. Gamifying broadcast content - with home viewers competing/voting in real time

Dan Machen is head of innovation at Billington Cartmell !nvent. 

As retirement plans go, living in hope that one day you will be swept off your feet by George Clooney is -probably not one of the most reliable, at least that is the view taken by DnB NOR bank. With typical Nordic pragmatism, DnB offers an alternative to the 'one day I'll just wake up rich' strategy.

This is proof that even financial services advertising can maintain a sense of humour.

A new 12-episode series called My Naked Secret has been launched by Discovery Networks International.

Discovery Channel is integrated into Gears of War game to promote Monday night schedules. See our full case study here.

The Discovery Channel combined science with slapstick cartoon-like violence to make the content fun for young boys to learn. See our full case study here.

In the US, the Discovery channel broadcasted HDTV to the idle bus travellers of Manhattan in Bluetooth fitted bus shelters. See our full case study here.