New market research by Ensequence claims that 73 percent of television viewers would like the opportunity to use their remote controls to interact with their TV program advertising. A grain of salt here: Ensequence describes itself as "the interactive TV company (that) enables programmers, distributors and advertisers to create and deploy a high volume of interactive television experiences."
Still, results of the online survey conducted of 2,555 TV viewers queried by Harris Interactive on Ensequence's behalf seem to show a visible audience interest on the part of interacting with their TVs.
On a straight-up basis, 55 percent of drama viewers want interactive and 30 percent would like to set recordings and reminders (that's serious); 74 percent of reality viewers are ready to interact and 70 percent of sports viewers want the ability, while 40 percent want to get scores, news and information from other live events.
On the advertising side, 73 percent of respondents said they'd like to interact with TV commercials; 58 percent would request free samples, and 43 percent would locate a local retailer who carries the product. Perhaps based on the increased interactive applications found in smartphones, these results are significantly higher than a similar 2007 survey where only 9 percent of viewers said they'd ask for free samples and 2 percent would locate a retailer who carries a product.
For more:
- see this news release
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