A COMPARISON OF THREE INTERACTIVE TELEVISION AD FORMATS
Steven Bellman, Anika Schweda, & Duane Varan
ABSTRACT: This study explores the effects of interacting with three current interactive television (iTV) ad formats, using an
Australian audience panel. Interaction with iTV ads has positive effects on awareness and net positive thoughts, which increase
purchase intentions compared with the influence of regular ads. The telescopic format represents the best format, likely because it
makes the most of the entertaining possibilities of iTV by offering additional long-form video; its superior performance cannot be
explained readily by self-selection effects. The results suggest that the effectiveness of iTV ads should be measured by their
interaction rate rather than the much smaller response rate, and iTV advertisers should consider ways to maximize interaction
and response rates.
Keywords: Interactive digital television, advertising, experiment, interactivity, self-selection, telescopic ads.
The digitization of television introduces new capabilities to
television viewing experiences, including interactive formats
for advertising (Cauberghe and De Pelsmacker 2006). In the
United States, Canoe Ventures, a joint initiative by the six
largest cable companies, including Cablevision Systems,
Comcast, and Time Warner Cable, promises to roll out
interactive television (iTV) ads to 38 million homes that
already have two-way communication digital cable boxes
installed. Viewers watching these ads can use their remote
controls to request information about a product, such as a
brochure or more information onscreen, or even buy the
product (Arango 2008; Petrecca 2008). Interactive TV
advertising services are also likely to feature on emerging
platforms such as IPTV (Loughney, Eichholz, and Hagger
2008; Schechner and Kumar 2009) and mobile phones (Nasco
and Bruner 2007); they are already present on some video-on-
demand (VOD) and digital video recorder (DVR) services
(Manly 2006). This study provides an exploratory
investigation of a key question for broadcasters and marketers:
How effective are these new iTV ads?
To answer this question, we test not just one but three major
iTV ad formats currently in use around the world (Cauberghe
and De Pelsmacker 2006). By testing three formats, we can
investigate whether iTV ads are effective in general or only
with the most appropriate format.
The impulse response (see Appendix 1) format is widely used
on the British Sky Broadcasting platform in the United
Kingdom, and a similar format was deployed between 1999
and 2004 on the "Wink" platform in the United States (now
owned by OpenTV; http://www.opentv.com
). Similar to other
formats, these ads have an "interactivity" icon superimposed
over the standard video ad. This icon is typically accompanied
by a text message that invites viewers to press a button on their
remote control (i.e., the red button on Sky, the SELECT/OK
button on Wink/Open TV) to take advantage of an offer, such
as a brochure or "call back," or enter a sweepstake. The
interactivity in impulse response ads is very limited, often
involving only a second button press (e.g., the blue button on
the Sky platform) to confirm "taking" the offer, which prevents
accidental requests and ordering by young children. Because
the interactivity is so simple, the accompanying messages fit
easily on banners superimposed over the regular ad, which
plays out normally underneath them. If the offer requires
details such as a name or telephone number, which can take
several minutes to enter, the banners will superimpose over
the next content (which on Sky is always a program, because
the iTV ads are always last in a break), until the interaction is
complete.
Dedicated advertiser location (DAL) ads (see Appendix 2)
allow much greater interactivity, because they resemble
miniature Web sites ("microsites"). However, to view them,
the interactor must leave his or her live video content. These
pages are sub-channels, obtained by dividing the main
channel's allocated bandwidth, which limits the number of
pages that can be used and the type of content displayed (e.g.,
audio/video versus text/stills). These pages tend to resemble a
PowerPoint presentation, but interactors can navigate freely
(change channels) between pages by pressing buttons on the
remote control. Again, this format is widely used on Sky in the
United Kingdom.
Telescopic ads (see Appendix 3) also take viewers away from
the program but to extended audiovisual ("long-form")
content, downloaded on demand or stored in advance on the
viewer's DVR. Thus, viewers can pause the program to view a
JournalofInteractiveAdvertising,Vol10No1(Fall2009),pp.14‐34.
©2010AmericanAcademyofAdvertising,Allrightsreserved
ISSN1525‐2019
15 JournalofInteractiveAdvertising Fall 2009
telescopic ad and not miss anything. This format is similar to
TiVo's "showcase" (Harmon 2003) and was introduced in the
United Kingdom by Sky as the VAL (video advertiser location)
in late 2007 (McLachlan 2009). Examples of all three formats
can be viewed on the Sky Media (2009) Web site.
We compare the effectiveness of these three iTV ad formats in
two ways. First, we assess their interaction rates. The main
benefit of iTV ads for advertisers is their ability to generate
timely responses from self-qualifying prospects (Marcus
2008). Responding to TV ads is more attractive to viewers
when they can do so without missing any content, so response
rates tend to be higher for iTV ads than for traditional free
phone call ads, which are also more expensive to implement
(Harvey 2004; Schreiber 2008). Similar to previous studies
(e.g., Levy and Nebenzahl 2006, 2008), we investigate how
much the interaction rate may depend on involvement with
the product, which is a measure of how qualified the
respondent is. The performance of iTV advertising campaigns
can be gauged by their ability to select a target audience for the
campaign, namely, those viewers who are most interested in
the advertised product (Marcus 2008).
Second, we measure the effects of iTV ads on awareness and
persuasion. The ability of iTV ads to generate responses from
qualified prospects may be all that advertisers consider, but
just as Web banner ads do more than generate click-through
actions, iTV ads might do more than more than simply
"harvest" consumers already sold on the brand by other forms
of advertising (cf. Loughney, Eichholz, and Hagger 2008).
Intuitively, interactors should be more interested in the
product but after interacting also be more aware of the
advertised brand, with more favorable attitudes and intentions
toward it, than non-interactors. These differences provide
useful checks of how well an iTV ad selects useful respondents.
However, we go beyond simple checks to explore whether any
of these potential positive effects may be due to interaction
with the ad. If interaction with iTV ads has positive effects on
awareness and persuasion, iTV ads could be designed and
tested to maximize these effects and thus occupy an even more
important role in the advertising mix.
We measure awareness using ad recall and persuasion by
brand purchase intentions. These important measures of
effectiveness for regular TV ads are also critical for no-
response iTV ads, such as those that provide information or
games. One-third or more of interactions with iTV ads that
make offers are no-response interactions; that is, the offer does
not get accepted (Harvey 2004). Is it possible that these "failed"
interactions have a positive benefit for the advertiser? Case
studies by Sky suggest that interaction with iTV ads may
influence awareness and persuasion, even when the offer is not
accepted. For example, half of the interactors not interested in
Dulux paint prior to an interaction said afterward that they
were likely to purchase the brand (Sky Media 2009). Scanner
data from Sky's viewer panel, SkyView, also shows an increase
in purchasing after interaction, across product categories
(McLachlan 2009). Controlled lab studies also reveal that iTV
ads increase awareness, brand attitude (Bellman, Pribudi, and
Varan 2004; Cauberghe and De Pelsmacker 2008c), and
behavioral intentions (Reading et al. 2006).
We test for the persuasive effect of iTV ads using a measure
recommended for ad testing by Rossiter and Percy (1997) that
conveniently combines awareness and intention in one
number: weighted purchase intention, or awareness ×
intention. Greater awareness increases sales only if purchase
intentions are favorable, and higher purchase intentions
increase sales only if consumers can remember the brand
(Ehrenberg, Barnard, and Scriven 1997). Note that we measure
intention to purchase rather than actual purchasing (Jensen
2005; Johnson 2006; Petrecca 2008), as others have done with
iTV ads (Levy and Nebenzahl 2008). We choose this measure
not only to compare iTV ads with regular ads but also because
iTV purchase ads are still very rare in the field; only 1% of
Wink ads, and no Sky ads at all, have been purchase ads.
In the next section, we develop research questions about why
viewers might interact with iTV ads and why interaction with
iTV ads generally, or some iTV ad formats rather than others,
might be associated with a positive effect on purchase
intentions. We also offer a brief discussion of the method we
use to differentiate self-selection response effects from the
potentially positive effects of interaction. We then describe our
experiment and report its results. Finally, we conclude with a
discussion of the implications of our study for advertisers and
further research.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Cauberghe and De Pelsmacker (2006, p. 23) define interactive
digital television as "a group of technologies that gives users
the possibility to take control over their TV experience,
enabling interactivity with the content." The key term in this
definition is "interactivity." In this section, we develop seven
research questions about what drives viewers to interact with
iTV ads and what effects might result from interactivity.
16 JournalofInteractiveAdvertising Fall 2009
Product Category Involvement
For advertisers, one of the most useful aspects of iTV ads is
their ability to "cherry pick" the viewers most interested in
buying the advertised product. Product category involvement
increases the personal relevance of ads for that category
(Rothschild 1979), especially when a person is "in the market"
(Richins and Bloch 1986), which makes it more likely that ads
will be processed more extensively (Celsi and Olson 1988;
Greenwald and Leavitt 1984; Petty, Cacioppo and Schumann
1983) and that viewers will want to click on an interactive ad
to find out more about the advertised brand (Mathwick and
Rigdon 2004; Yang et al. 2006).
But what if iTV ads could collect responses from viewers who
were not as involved with the product category? This
capability would spread the potential benefits of interacting to
those viewers who could be most affected by it, that is, those
not already sold on the advertised brand by information they
already have. Levy and Nebenzahl (2006, 2008) repeatedly find
that higher product category involvement is positively
associated with interacting with iTV ads, though they measure
product involvement after the interaction, which implies it
could have been an effect rather than a cause of interactivity.
The effects of ad execution variables, such as the use of
comparative advertising (Pechmann and Esteban 1993), are
especially strong at moderate levels of involvement, at which
they can function as both peripheral and central cues. The
presence of interactive enhancements, which can serve as
peripheral or central cues (Liu and Shrum 2009), also might
have a similarly compelling effect at moderate or even lower
levels of prior product category involvement. Recently, Liu
and Shrum (2009) manipulated message involvement using a
sample that varied in product involvement and found that
even low message involvement participants interacted to some
extent, though significantly less than high message
involvement participants. These findings suggest that though
there is undoubtedly a positive correlation between product
category involvement and the extent of interactivity, minimal
interactivity, such as pressing a button on a TV remote
control, might occur at a low threshold of involvement. Our
first research question sets out to explore this possibility:
RQ1: Can iTV ads generate interactions from viewers
who are not highly involved with the advertised product
category?
Effects of Interactivity on Awareness and Persuasion
Research into interactivity and its effects has been plagued by
vagueness and inconsistency in the definition of what, exactly,
"interactivity" is (Bucy and Tao 2007; Rafaeli and Ariel 2007).
Nevertheless, various studies demonstrate that the availability
of interactive features, such as hyperlinks, search engines, and
messaging capabilities, give rise to perceptions of interactivity,
which fully mediate the influence of objectively measured
interactivity on measures of communication effects, such as
evaluations of a Web site (Song and Zinkhan 2008; Wu 2005).
Ratings of perceived interactivity appear to measure the
distance between the current interaction and the "gold
standard" for interactivity: face-to-face conversation (Rafaeli
and Ariel 2007; cf. Bucy and Tao 2007). Various dimensions of
perceived interactivity include active control, two-way
communication, and synchronicity (Liu 2003; Liu and Shrum
2002; see also Johnson, Bruner, and Kumar 2006; Sohn and
Lee 2005), though all these subdimensions are characteristic of
face-to-face conversation (Rafaeli and Ariel 2007). Like a good
teacher, interactive stimuli identify the points that need to be
learned and can repeat them until the receiver knows them by
heart (Schaffer and Hannafin 1986). Like a persuasive
salesperson, interactive stimuli can identify and answer
objections, increase the expected value of desired outcomes,
bolster the customer's belief the outcomes are possible, and
adapt goals to the stage of the behavior-change process
(Cassell, Jackson, and Cheuvront 1998). Moreover, the
consistency, persistence, and access to data associated with
computerized applications give them the potential to be better
teachers and more persuasive salespeople than human
interactors (Fogg 2003).
At a minimum, the addition of interactive opportunities to a
video advertisement should clarify its key points for passive,
low-involvement viewers (Schaffer and Hannafin 1986), who
have limited capacity to comprehend audiovisual experiences
(Lang 2000). This identification of key points and goals
(Janiszewski 1998) and the need to be prepared to act on them
should motivate the application of extra resources to make
more capacity available for encoding, storage, and retrieval of
key points (Cauberghe and De Pelsmacker 2008b; Lang 2000;
Lustria 2007). Similar to motivated message processors
generally (MacInnis, Moorman, and Jaworski 1991),
interactors should process the ad more deeply (Liu and Shrum
2002; Sundar and Kim 2005) and generate more thoughts
about the ad (Celsi and Olson 1988; Sicilia, Ruiz, and Munuera
2005). The longer experiences offered by iTV ads also offer
more time for elaborating on the ad's message (Cauberghe and
17 JournalofInteractiveAdvertising Fall 2009
De Pelsmacker 2008c), similar to the thinking space created by
the repetition of regular ads (Cacioppo and Petty 1979;
Campbell and Keller 2003). Greater elaboration and more
thoughts about the key points in the ad will offer more
opportunities to rehearse them, so that they are more likely to
be recalled (Cacioppo and Petty 1979; Greenwald and Leavitt
1984). Therefore, we investigate whether interactors with iTV
ads generate more thoughts about the ad and therefore have a
higher level of ad recall than non-interactors, as well as
compared with viewers of regular TV ads.
RQ2: Can interaction with iTV ads increase thinking
about the ad and ad recall?
A rule of thumb used by media planners suggests three
exposures to a regular ad are necessary to communicate its
message and maximize its effectiveness (Krugman 1972;
Naples 1997), especially when advertising unfamiliar (Jones
1997) or low-involvement (Katz 2007) brands. With audience
fragmentation and TV ad avoidance increasing, achieving this
goal is more and more difficult. Previous research shows that a
single interaction with a DAL iTV ad can deliver the same
levels of awareness as three exposures to a regular ad (Bellman,
Pribudi, and Varan 2004). In our third research question, we
consider whether this new rule of thumb applies across iTV
ads generally:
RQ3: Do interactors with iTV ads exhibit a level of ad
recall equal to or greater than the level of ad recall
associated with three exposures to a regular TV ad?
Generating more thoughts about the ad is unlikely to
encourage buying if all these thoughts are negative. The overall
evaluation of the advertised brand depends on how many
positive thoughts get generated, relative to negative thoughts
(Cacioppo and Petty 1979; Sicilia, Ruiz, and Munuera 2005).
Usually, an excess of positive thoughts is summarized by a
positive attitude toward the ad; in the absence of any prior
information about the brand, a positive attitude toward the ad
generally is predictive of a favorable brand attitude and
purchase intentions (Brown and Stayman 1992; MacKenzie
and Lutz 1989). Therefore, we propose the following research
question:
RQ4: Does interaction with an iTV ad increase net
positive thoughts about the ad?
We further consider whether interaction with iTV ads has a
positive effect on sales (estimated using weighted purchase
intention), which seems likely if the answers to our previous
research questions are positive. That is, interactors with iTV
ads should be more aware of the advertised brand than non-
interactors and generate more net positive thoughts about the
brand. Then,
RQ5: Can interaction with an iTV ad increase the
probability of purchasing the advertised brand?
Evidence in support of this hypothesis comes from previous
studies by Cauberghe and De Pelsmacker (2008c), who find a
positive effect of interactivity on attitude toward the brand,
and Sundar and Kim (2005), who reveal that purchase
intentions increase in line with higher levels of interactivity.
Potential Differences Between iTV Ad Formats
As well as testing for a generally positive effect of interaction
with iTV ads on awareness and persuasion, we are interested
in testing the relative effectiveness of the three main iTV ad
formats. Previous research identifies an "interactivity paradox"
(Bucy 2004), such that adding interactivity can generate
negative and positive thoughts, resulting in an inverse U-
shaped effect (Cauberghe and De Pelsmacker 2008b; Liu and
Shrum 2009; Sundar, Kalyanaraman, and Brown 2003). At low
to moderate levels, interactivity allows consumers to control
the information flow; thus, "customer needs are uncovered,
met, modified, and satisfied" (Bezjian-Avery, Calder, and
Iacobucci 1998, p. 23). But at higher levels of available
interactivity, the advantages of access to the right pieces of
information may come at the cost of more time and effort
(Rogers 1986), as well as the need to split resources across two
tasks: comprehension and navigation (Yeung, Jin, and Sweller
1997). Therefore, when Ariely (2000) increases the demands
on available processing capacity, he finds negative effects of
greater control over the information flow.
Our comparisons among the three formats focus on the DAL
(microsite) format, which is closest to Web site interactivity
and the most expensive to buy (Sky Media 2009). We explore
whether the DAL format, with its greater ability to provide a
customized flow of information, enables interactors to process
the content of an iTV ad more deeply and generate more
thoughts about the ad. Because DAL navigators can select the
pages of content they need to see, more thoughts may be
positive rather than negative. Therefore, DAL ads may be
more persuasive than the other two formats, as measured by
weighted purchase intention.
However, interacting with the DAL format may generate more
negative thoughts than interacting with the other two formats,
for several reasons. First, the DAL experience is not "as
engaging and genuinely interactive as web advertising"
18 JournalofInteractiveAdvertising Fall 2009
(McLachlan 2009, p. 28). If DAL ads cannot match interactors'
expectations, they may rate these interactive ads less favorably
(Sohn, Ci, and Lee 2007). Second, the return delivered by DAL
pages may not balance the effort required to retrieve it,
especially for "lazy interactors"-a description that likely fits
iTV viewers, who use a remote control to navigate rather than
a mouse or a keyboard (Jensen 2005). An excess of negative
over positive thoughts will generate a negative attitude to the
ad and therefore a less favorable brand attitude and purchase
intentions, especially if the brand is unfamiliar (Brown and
Stayman 1992), as all the brands we test are. With the
following research question, we investigate how DAL ads
compare with the other two iTV ad formats:
RQ6: Do interactors with DAL iTV ads (a) generate more
thoughts about the ad, (b) have higher levels of ad recall,
(c) have more net positive thoughts, and (d) exhibit a
higher probability of buying the advertised brand,
compared with interactors with the two other iTV ad
formats, impulse and telescopic?
Prior research suggests that telescopic ads can be more
effective than regular ads (Reading et al. 2006), but we have no
prior studies on which to base expectations about how they
will compare with impulse response ads. Both formats offer
relatively limited interactivity, which still should increase the
motivation to process the key points of the ad and therefore ad
memorability (Cauberghe and De Pelsmacker 2008b; Schaffer
and Hannafin 1986). However, the long-format video
experience delivered by telescopic ads may provide more time
to process the ad (Singh and Cole 1993), allow more space to
elaborate on the ad's message (Cacioppo and Petty 1979), and
potentially provide "vicarious product experiences," similar to
those that give long-form infomercials an edge over 30-second
ads (Singh, Balasubramanian, and Chakraborty 2000). We ask,
therefore, whether telescopic ads are more effective than
impulse ads:
RQ7: Do interactors with telescopic iTV ads (a) generate
more thoughts about the ad, (b) have higher levels of ad
recall, (c) have more net positive thoughts, and (d) exhibit
a higher probability of buying the advertised brand,
compared with interactors with impulse iTV ads?
METHOD
We use a controlled experiment to test the effects of
interaction with three currently employed iTV ad formats,
using an audience panel recruited through newspaper
advertisements and direct mail from the general public in an
Australian city. This study was carried out during March-May
2005 as the first of a series of proprietary studies investigating
future trends in television advertising and programming,
sponsored by a global consortium of companies, including
television networks, media buyers, and advertisers
(http://www.beyond30.org/
). This balance of interests helps
ensure the independence of the research.
SAMPLE
This study was conducted in Australia to take advantage of a
well-equipped audience research laboratory with eight years of
experience in developing and testing interactive TV
applications. The obvious disadvantage of using an Australian
panel is that it contains no U.S. consumers. But Australia is
culturally similar to the United States (e.g., on Hofstede's
[1980] individualism-collectivism index, Australia scores 90
[#2], and the United States scores 91 [#1]), and the main
language in both countries is English. American programs fill
Australian network schedules, so the cover story for the
participants in our study was that they were evaluating
whether a new U.S. show should be aired on Australian TV.
They were told that because the show had been recorded in the
United States, it included U.S. ads in the ad breaks. This story
enabled us to advertise unfamiliar brands from product
categories that were readily available in the local market, using
finished/actually aired ads, a manipulation that can be difficult
to achieve in the United States (Brasel and Gips 2008). Any
effects we observe cannot be explained by prior exposure
(Campbell and Keller 2003).
Participants were invited to undertake a one-hour study in
return for a AUD$20 department store voucher. The final
sample (N = 559) contained more women than men (66%
versus 34%) but ranged widely in age (18 to 84 years, M =
37.90, SD = 15.61). Only 20% were students, and only 30% had
some college education or higher.
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
The 559 participants were randomly allocated across four
conditions: (1) impulse response (n = 140), (2) DAL (n = 129),
(3) telescopic (n = 219), and (4) control (regular versions of
the test ads, n = 71). More participants were required for the
interactive conditions to allow for non-interaction, especially
in the telescopic condition, which offered just one interactive
opportunity to view a long-form video lasting several minutes,
in addition to the half-hour TV program.
Examples of the three interactive conditions, for three of the
five test brands, appear in the Appendices. For all three iTV ad
