(VIDEO) Industry Should Scale Up Social TV Ads: Mediocean's Palmer

Threading consumers' social media content in to TV ads in real-time is possible - it's just going to take a push to make it a reality in the U.S. like it is in Europe and the Nordics, says one ad tech vendor.

"It's almost like direct-response television," says Mike Palmer, SVP of Optica, the ad delivery network division of Mediaocean. "For millennials, it's their moment of fame. They want to be in those ads."

Palmer says such projects have already gathered pace across the pond. "Social television gives an advertiser, a creative agency, a media agency an opportunity to embed user-generated content in to the traditional 30-second spot.

"Today, it's very manual, it's very labour-intensive, disconnected and fragmented. We're making sure agencies are ready for a tsunami of social media content."

"It's happening in Europe now," he says. "An advertiser, Intel, asked people to submit photos, wishing people Merry Christmas. They promised, in the next break, you'll see your image in the next break on national television. That happened in the UK.

"Because of the size of the US, there's a scale issue... it's just not happening at scale. We need to make sure agencies we serve are ready to manage that scale."

With offices Manchester, Oslo, New York and Sydney, Never.no has worked with the likes of Fox Sports, Turner Sports and QVC Japan to enable in-show social content. Now it wants to work with TV and video advertisers, to put live interaction in to traditional broadcast or video.

Never.no says NBC Universal's USA Network, which has used the system, has found dwell times extend by up to four minutes amongst viewers who see their own messages inside ads.

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