Social advertising units delivered within seconds of a commercial airing on TV generate significantly higher click-through rates at lower costs

Cannes Lions Festival, Cannes, France, June 16, 2014 – Civolution, the leading provider of technology and solutions for identifying, managing and monetizing content, and Brand Networks, the leading provider of data-driven social marketing solutions, today announced a partnership allowing brands and agencies to buy Twitter ads in complete synchronization with TV commercials. Brand Networks and Civolution worked together with Resolution Media, Omnicom Media Group’s global search and social performance agency, on the upcoming launch of a summer blockbuster movie for one of Resolution Media’s marquee clients. The campaign displayed a 250% lift in Click-through Rate (CTR) for the Twitter ads that were synchronized to the airing of the movie’s television spots.

Civolution’s ad-triggering service, SyncNow, which monitors hundreds of cable and broadcast channels nationally and internationally to identify TV ads in real time, was integrated with Brand Networks’ Open Signals™ technology to automatically buy ads on Twitter within seconds of when an ad spot for the summer blockbuster—or a competing blockbuster—aired on TV. Resolution Media’s new Current@Resolution platform, which features real-time social media planning and buying services through Omnicom Media Group’s OMD and PHD networks, was used to deliver their marquee client’s ad content over the Civolution-augmented Open Signals’ technology.

The pilot program found that Twitter ads that were synced in real time to TV ads for the summer action movie showed a 250% lift in CTR and 32% lower cost compared to the control group. Further, Twitter ads synced in real time to TV ads of competing movies showed a 204% lift in CTR and 22% lower cost compared to the control group. Resolution Media was the first agency to partner with Civolution and Brand Networks previously to run the first TV synchronized campaigns on Facebook for promotion of a major motion picture.

“We continue to find that real-time social advertising is critical to the success of today’s digital advertising campaigns, and this pilot with Civolution and Brand Networks was further evidence of its power,” said Gerry Bavaro, Chief Strategy Officer, Resolution Media. “The summer movie season is the most important time of the year for many of our entertainment-industry clients, and providing this type of edge could truly impact an opening weekend for them.”

“We expected a rise in the performance of our TV-synchronized social advertisements, but a 250% lift far exceeded our expectations,” said Jamie Tedford, Founder and CEO, Brand Networks. “Our advertising partners are seeing not only higher engagement for their digital spends by syncing those ad units to the TV spots, but they are also seeing more efficient use of their marketing dollars through significantly reduced costs.”

“Such a dramatic increase in the performance of the TV-synced ad units shows how effective this combination of broadcast and digital can be,” said Alex Terpstra, CEO, Civolution. “In teaming with Brand Networks and Resolution Media to provide their client an end-to-end advertising technique that leverages this effectiveness, we were able to activate a highly sophisticated advertising buy with unprecedented simplicity for the client.”

The Civolution and Brand Networks’ TV-synced advertising product is now available. Please visit http://bn.co/contact for more information.

Civolution CEO Alex Terpstra will unveil the findings of the pilot campaign at the Innovation Day at Cannes Lions on Monday 16 June.

Civolution’s SyncNow Ads platforms identifies TV commercials in real time and enables advertisers to deliver TV-synced ads on viewers’ mobile devices simultaneously with commercials running on their televisions. Advertisers can engage with their target audiences in real time across the most visited social media sites, mobile apps and websites. The SyncNow Ads platform is used today by many advertisers across North America and Europe to amplify their message, improve brand exposure, and ultimately increase ROI on advertising spend.