In a test of what the future might bring, the $150 million Charlotte Metro Credit Union (CMCU) paired with Time Warner® Cable stations to run interactive ads on local cable channels beginning last September. No one else in the state has tried the innovative technique, and CMCU hasn’t heard of any other credit union trying. During the pilot program, viewers watched a 30-second CMCU commercial and could punch a special button on their remotes to watch a 7-minute "documentary" commercial on the history of CMCU and the benefits of credit unions.
Nathan Tothrow, CMCU marketing director, explained the idea and the implications for the future.
Phillips: How did you get the idea for interactive ads?
Tothrow: “I normally use a buyer for television media, but some folks for Time Warner called and wanted to set up a meeting. The conversation turned to a philosophical discussion of where media was going, and I said I was of the mind that somewhere down the line Internet and the television would come together. You have the enormous reach of television and the enormous interactivity of the Internet. No one can become a customer over the television—you have to get them humming a jingle or send them to your store. Every window on the web is a front door to your branch.”
Phillips: Did you know of the possibility of making television more interactive?
Tothrow: “The Time Warner people said they were doing interactive polling and gathering data. I asked if they could send someone to my website using that same idea, and they said ‘no’… but they could send them to a TV channel to do a long-form type of material. Being a credit union in the city of Charlotte where we have two of the top five banks in the country, I have a unique marketing challenge of trying to educate consumers on what a credit union is. Long form really lends itself well to that challenge. So we agreed to do a 6 to 7-minute documentary, put it on a particular channel, meanwhile I would continue to run a commercial I was already running. But we’d have an overlay that would let the customer click over from the channel with the 30-second commercial to the documentary.”
Phillips: How long did it run?
Tothrow: “Three months, ending in November.”
Phillips: And what kind of results did you have?
Tothrow: “This had only been piloted once or twice in the country, so I had no idea what kind of expectations I should have. We ran the commercial 1,400 times right across the prime time buffer. Out of that 1,400 times in three months, we had people click on the interactive button 240 times. Because of the vagaries of the cable box world and the different types of outdated boxes out there, only a small percentage of the viewers were able to interact with the interactive piece. So we had another version of the overlay out there for those who didn’t have updated software and boxes, and we got an additional 400 people who manually went to the documentary.
If you translate that to an interaction rate, it translates to about 20 percent.”
Phillips: Would viewers ever have seen an ad like it?
Tothrow: “I told Time Warner and our board that we were taking a historically passive medium where you stay on your couch and had information shoveled into your face It’s been that way since the ’50s. And even though we’ve had this parallel culture of the Internet, the consumer is geared to be interactive with their computer, then go back to their passive state when they get to their television. So I was very surprised we had over 600 people see the commercial and go find their remote and click the button. It’s telling me the viewer will respond to television advertising.”
Phillips: Have you been able to measure if you’ve gained new customers because of the ads?
Tothrow: “Growth had been flat before, so I’m poised to see any growth as a result of this. Once we do online web space ads, we’ll be tracking web hits and applications online. We have seen a marked increase in online applications beginning in November."
Phillips: What kind of overlap do you have between your website and television ads?
Tothrow: “Now we have online account openings and deposits, and I wanted to open up the website to even more people, so we created another television commercial using the NBA’s Muggsy Bogues. We have him in the ads, which started in December, and we have him inside of our website using digital graphics. The television ad is a direct call to go to your Internet—it will direct them to a ‘become a member’ page."
Phillips: So the interactivity ultimately gives you a more efficient way of making them a customer?
Tothrow: “If I can get them over to the Internet, I can make them a customer. And you get more information to them this way. When we do television advertising, we have to put everything we have in a 30-second spot. With this we can put a ‘read more’ button, and, if they want more, that button is a contract asking for more information. So we’re not flooding the ad space with clutter, which becomes white noise. This way they ask for more information. With TV, your ad is at most a tolerated interruption. On the Internet, they’ve chosen to see more information. What we’re finding is people are responding to television advertising, and you can motivate them to take certain actions.”
Phillips: Will we see more of this?
Tothrow: “We were piloting it for Time Warner, and now they’re starting to market it to their advertising customers. And we’re at the beginning of this. Digital television is going to be a dream for marketing—they can tell you what someone is watching and how long they watched it. It blows away Nielsen rating. They can tell you if people are watching long enough to see your ad. Sooner or later we will be watching Internet on TV, and we’re getting closer step by step.”
