Twitter Unveils TV Ad Tie-In Service

Twitter has announced a new service offering TV advertisers the ability to target people who are tweeting about their ad campaigns.

Twitter struck a multi-year agreement with Nielsen in December to produce a new metric, the 'Nielsen Twitter TV Rating', and went on to buy Bluefin Labs, which tracks social media conversations about TV programs, in February this year.

The new offer, 'TV ad targeting on Twitter', will initially be offered in specific areas of the US, and uses video fingerprinting technology to log when and where the client's ads are showing. The package then identifies who tweeted about the program being shown at the time. The results are displayed in a dashboard, and relevant tweeters can be targeted using the firm's Promoted Tweets service.

Twitter says the tool means ad agencies can respond quickly to online activity and fine tune their Promoted Tweets for the greatest impact on the overall campaign; and points out that users who are sufficiently engaged with a show to tweet about it are also very likely to have seen the ads.

Michael Fleischman (pictured), Twitter Product Manager for Revenue, said in a blog post: 'Synchronized Twitter and TV ad campaigns make brand messages more engaging, interactive and measurable, while making it easy for marketers to run always-on Twitter campaigns that complement and amplify their TV creative'.

The microblogging leader, which already has ad deals for the likes of ESPN, Fox and The Weather Channel, has also added a range of new partners including Clear Channel, Conde Nast and Bloomberg TV, and is said to be in talks with NBCUniversal and Viacom.|

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.