Shazam that ad

Rosie Baker is Marketing Week’s specialist on sustainability and retail.

Shazam, the mobile app, used to be the go to app for identifying songs. Great when you hear a track you love but don’t know what it is and great if you’re the kind of person that cheats in the pub quiz – but now there is scope for brands to use it.

Shazam

With the exclusive deal Shazam has signed with ITV and the broadcaster’s commercial teams pushing the service, it now offers brands a whole new dimension for TV advertising.

The rise in ‘dual screen’ viewing, where many consumers are also online while watching TV is positive in many ways for brands, and gives an opportunity for deeper engagement, but there are negative side effects too.

One is that if audiences are also online while they watch TV at home, during the ad breaks they are more likely to be distracted and pay less attention to the TV screen. This means that there is dilution of the engagement that traditional TV advertisers can achieve.

The roll out of Shazam’s services for advertisers could be a remedy for that and the ways it can be used are limitless.

Shazam rolled out this service in the US last year and more than half the ads that appeared during the Superbowl in February were Shazam-enabled so that viewers could access additional content through the app.

Kraft used the service to make ads more interactive for instance by giving access to recipes using Philadelphia when the app recognised the brand’s ad.

Cars.com donated €1 to charity when viewers Shazammed the ad and Pepsi’s ad, which featured the winner of the US X-Factor,  gave Shazammers a free video.

Its now available for brands in the UK and smart brands will be looking at how they can take advantage of the app to add depth to TV advertising through dual screens.

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