Unilever's Chicken Tonight advert heralded the start of a revolution that now encompasses an estimated one in 15 of all campaigns broadcast on the SkyDigital platform. That means around 20,000 adverts are broadcast with a red button every month.

So has the UK consumer fallen out of love with their red button in the intervening years or does the finger on the remote still itch every time the screen asks them to "press red"?

The good news is that interacting has moved beyond the early adopters and the "I wonder what will happen if I press red" brigade to become an accepted part of most digital viewers' TV experience.

Statistics from Sky show that 93 per cent of SkyDigital households interacted with their TV between January and June 2006. Viewers of all ages - although many campaigns continue to target the younger demographics - will now press red with confidence, in part thanks to the increasing amount of interaction offered by programme makers.

ITV, for example, reports that three million viewers now press red on Coronation Street every month and spending up to 10 minutes within the interactive service.

"The age profile of those interacting is now flattening out. At the start it was mainly the young who interacted but as the red button is now seen during Wimbledon coverage, other major events and programmes everyone now has the confidence to interact. The reasons might be different, the young mainly for entertainment and the chance of winning something on ads and voting on Big Brother or X Factor, for example, and the older more upmarket for information," says Nick Evans, associate director at Carat. "The medium is also moving more ABC1 than it was five years ago as a wider range of advertisers move into interactive TV. The offering has matured a lot since the "Chicken Tonight" days."

Proof of the widespread appeal of interactive advertising is the fact that Channel 4 has run red button ads for Seven Seas Cod Liver Oil, - following two successful campaigns for Multibionta - a product targeted mainly at the over 55s.

"Although this isn't a traditional group to reach with interactive ads, we successfully used 10-second interactive ads to reach this target market ," says commercial interactive manager Carie Bolsover.

There are now enough campaigns and enough research to identify a number of key trends in the way that audiences respond to the request to interact.

The key response for advertisers is the added impact on brand scores. Research by Sky into the effectiveness of 33 different campaigns with dedicated advertiser locations found that spontaneous first mentions of the brand advertising were 174 per cent higher among those who had interacted compared to consumers who had just seen the linear TV ad.

And for some campaigns the numbers were even more impressive. The same statistic for the recent Chrysler Dodge launch is 1567 per cent higher among interactors.

Freeview interaction
The interactive advertising medium has also extended beyond Sky viewers to encompass - since April ITV has been offering interaction via the Freeview platform and Channel 4 is set to follow soon.

Much of the research into interactive audiences is based on experience of the digital satellite platform but the arrival of interactive adverts on Freeview means that clients, agencies and planners will have a new set of lessons to learn.

Bandwidth issues mean that content is necessarily less televisual experience but in April 2006 ITV launched the medium with a campaign for T-Mobile.

Brand awareness among adults with Freeview access was 59 per cent and 1.9m consumers were aware that the ad featured a red button. Five per cent of those who were aware that the ad was interactive pressed red.

Sony Ericsson, which launched a campaign aimed at the 6.8m interactive-enabled Freeview boxes in September this year, scored even better. Nearly 190,000 people - 20 per cent of those who were aware of the ad was interactive - pressed red.

Sky's latest research highlights the fact that different consumers are clearly responding to different messages. Crossover between households interacting for Carlsberg and Sprite was just 8 per cent, while for Carlsberg and Budweiser it was just 9 per cent, an impressive result considering many households will contain a mix of consumer groups.

Chloe Wilkinson, head of interactive advertising at Sky Media, points out that profiles of respondents on the 10 studied campaigns show clear differences between those pressing red.

"Carlsberg interactors like football the most but Jaguar interactors like football the least. Jaguar interactors like golf the most but Sprite interactors like golf the least, being younger."

Wilkinson says there are a number of issues that planners and brands need to address to get consumers to interact.

The first is to get the red button call to action right: "The message on the red button is crucial," she says.

The second is to continue the look and feel of the linear ad so that the interaction meets expectations of the brand and also the promise made by the call to action. "When you get into the DAL make sure it's what the viewer would expect to see," she says.

The third point is that the more televisual the interactive experience the better. Interactive ads that are too cluttered will simply confuse viewers who will opt to go back to the broadcast stream.

Finally the empirical evidence suggests that longer time length ads do seem to work better as the lead in to a potential interaction.

Time spent in the DAL
The rewards to getting it right can be immense. Sky's survey of 10 dedicated advertiser location-based campaigns showed that on average viewers spent nearly two minutes in these areas. For the Carlsberg campaign, which scored best in this study, they spent more than four minutes with the brand.

Carat's Evans suggests two key pointers. "If you are using the mini DAL/DAL option the content behind the ad is king. If the interactor is not entertained or offered anything extra then a bad experience could put him or her off," he says. "For an impulse response the key is ease of use. If the viewer has to fumble around answering too many questions then they will quickly lose interest so these need to be kept simple and quick."

Another new research project due to be published in the new year as part of IDS's latest publication Demystifying Interactive Advertising 2 identifies six key consumer responses to interactive advertising, all of which bring positive benefits to the brand.

The first of these is that brands that use interactive TV advertising benefit from added consumer trust compared to online ads. "Viewers trust interactive advertising more than the internet as a source of information and entertainment," says research director Andrew McIntosh.

The second benefit is credibility as viewers feel that "brands that incorporate interactivity into their advertising had invested more into their advertising, they take it to be a sign of greater effort".

Brands also benefit from accessibility as older consumers who are less comfortable with the web find it easier to access content through their TV.

Fourthly brands that invest in interactivity standout from the crowd, consumers regard them as more innovative and they gain some "exclusivity" from adding a red button to their creative.

The penultimate benefit is gravitas while the final benefit is affinity, as consumers warm to brands that provide extra content for the latter.

"Viewers feel more positive about brands that provide an extra service via the red button, they just appreciate it," says McIntosh.

The consensus is that in the seven years since Chicken Tonight, consumers have become more willing to the TV experience. The Sky Active A-Z, where interactive campaigns can be found even when they are not being broadcast, has become a destination in itself.

"We're finding that an increasing number of people are using the A-Z index and watching the advertising," says Weapon7 partner Steven Hess, pointing out that 1.7m of the 1.9m interactions for a recent Xbox 360 campaign have come via the A-Z. "I think there's an increasing number of people who are willing to explore their TV with their remote control whether that is Freeview or Sky."

Weapon 7 has even launched an interactive TV campaign without running any spot advertising at all. For the launch of the Nokia N-series it used a mix of press advertising in Sky Magazine to hit Sky households and a banner ad on the interactive services page on Sky.

The strategy enabled a model with a small budget to have a TV presence and encouraged 400,000 people to press red. Post campaign research also indicated that 29 per cent of those who had interacted were much more likely to consider Nokia compared to just 8 per cent among those who had not.

Mixing spot and interaction
One key issue for media planners in ensuring that their clients get the best value from interactive advertising is that planning for the medium has often come into the process much later than it should.

This means that the TV schedule can be dictated by the need for traditional TV to do its job of coverage and frequency rather than maximising the opportunities for interaction.

One reason for this has been the fact that interactivity is a fixed cost while spot TV is much higher and variable one, although contractors are looking to change this by introducing new rate cards that will encourage even low frequency advertisers to go interactive.

The hope is that these moves will lead to the needs of interactive TV coming in to the planning process at an earlier stage.

"You need to optimise to get the right balance between delivering traditional value returns and effective interactive impacts. I haven't found a situation where the interactive drives the media plan fundamentally because you have to look at the value of the spots you're getting," says Mark Brown, partner at Weapon 7.

Where plans are being tweaked to get a better response, Sky's research shows that daytime and pre-peak are optimum dayparts for interaction while Saturday, Sunday and Monday are the days found to get best results.

The thinking is that these are the times when consumers have more time and hence are in a better mindset for interaction. For the 10 campaigns studied 43 per cent of the interactions took place at the weekend.

Although it was originally imagined that interaction would be a solo activity some research indicates that a significant amount of interaction takes place when more than one person is watching TV as group viewing can encourage red pressing.

"We did originally think that it would be a solo experience but we now know that it's probably not," says Wilkinson.

Must see-TV
The final issue for planners is whether to avoid must-see programming as consumer involvement in a show will act as a barrier to pressing red.

Research by Shalom Levy and Israel Nebenzahl at the University of Bar-Ilan found that involvement with a programme would impact negatively on interaction levels.

Their study found that: "beyond a threshold level, greater involvement with the TV programme leads to reduced interactive behaviour with the advertisements. At the highest level of involvement, interactivity was practically nil."

Not everyone agrees with the conclusion, however, and Weapon7's Hess argues that "generally people are willing to interact when they believe that something is going to be of value to them more than what they are watching at that time. Appointment to view programmes can drive high levels of interaction."

Hess's view is backed up by Sky's research, which showed that consumers will stay with the ads even during programmes that ought to be highly entertaining, must-see experiences.

The Carlsberg campaign this summer kept viewers entertained in the DAL even as play started in the FA Cup Semi Final. When West Ham played Middlesbrough on April 23, 19 per cent of the interactors were still watching the ad seven minutes and 47 seconds after the programme had restarted, well beyond the sponsorship credits and a fair way into the commentators' post-match verdict.

What determines the approach that brands take may be the marketing brief. "Effectiveness comes in low interest programming," says Sky's Wilkinson. "If you want volume centre break of the football does well but it's slightly less effective."

Wilkinson says that other programmes that do well include The Simpsons and other shows that aren't time-shifted. "Programmes that aren't Sky Plus-ed tend to do better. The genres they fast forward are dramas and documentaries but no one would ever record news or live sport," she adds.

Seven lessons for better interaction

1. The Call To Action should be clearly visible, ideally with the red button and a "Press" command.
2. Plan where to put the Call To Action when making the broadcast ad - it shouldn't cover anything or look like it is "slapped on top".
3. Make it clear in the Call To Action what the viewer can expect when pressing red - and make sure the content delivers on that promise.
4. Take the opportunity of using the loading screen as valuable "interactive real estate".
5. The interactive element needs to be a continuation of the broadcast ad in terms of look and feel.
6. Give your viewers a useful and entertaining experience - in that order.
7. Do make the interactive content as televisual as possible. It is still TV

Source: Demystifying Interactive Advertising, IDS

Article by Alistair Ray