Consumers will decide the winner of the USA Today Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter, the publication recently announced, via a new partnership with Facebook. Advertisers that buy time during Super Bowl, of course, have been incorporating more and more social elements into the spots with each passing year. This initiative - an app hosted on Facebook and USAToday.com - increases the big game's social media creds even more as it will allow viewers to vote on the ads, see how other people rank them and share favorites with Facebook trends.
"Social media is changing the face of consumer engagement and this partnership more than ever, puts the consumer at the center of the conversation around advertising's biggest annual event," says David Payne, senior vice president and chief digital officer of Gannett, parent of USA Today.
Anything related to the Super Bowl - or Facebook for that matter — is usually noteworthy enough to stand as its own development, in its own category. However this time, the USA Today Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter is also illustrative of another trend that is moving faster and faster: the ever-increasing convergence between television, social media and online interactivity.
Another, less splashy, recent example is GetGlue, which has partnered with DirecTV to provide an app that lets consumers check into the social media network via on-screen controls and additional integration for the iPhone and iPad. This is the first time GetGlue has been integrated into a major pay TV system, the Hollywood Reporter says. The service will let DirecTV’s U.S. subscribers check into a show on GetGlue with their remote control and see their friends’ GetGlue streams on their TV screen.
Hulu also introduced similar functionality earlier this summer: that is, the ability to comment on a specific moment in time while watching any video on Hulu. Specifically, a user can instantly share those remarks along with the relevant video moment from the program on Facebook. Friends comment in response.
Program Filtering and the Era of Convergence
Program filtering via social networks has been recognized as a possible winning strategy for a greater - and hopefully more seamless - convergence of online and television content. Andy Mitchell, SVP of Strategic Partner Development at Facebook, recently discussed at the PromaxBDA conference the various ways in which Facebook can help the broadcast media embrace the social world, according to Adweek, starting with program filtering.
"If you look at the program guide [as it stands now], you’re trying to figure out what to watch among five hundred channels. It's really hard," Mitchell said.
"But think about a program guide where you see what your friends are watching, that changes the experience."
