Tag: TV Advertising

Durex UK: Dual Screen Ads

When the “real” ad plays on your second screen

People watch TV with a phone in hand. Durex UK used that habit to turn a standard broadcast spot into an interactive experience. Here, the “second screen” is the phone or tablet used alongside the main TV or computer screen.

Last year, Durex UK created a new way for viewers to interact with its TV ad. Viewers who used the Durex Explore mobile app while watching the ad on their TV or computer got a steamy alternative on their second screen.

How the dual-screen mechanic worked

The mechanism was straightforward. The broadcast spot acted as the trigger, and the Durex Explore app delivered an alternative experience on the viewer’s phone or tablet.

That split matters. The TV carried the mainstream version. The second screen carried the more private, more personal layer, where the viewer could engage without turning the living room into a shared moment.

In UK brand communications, second-screen behavior is already the norm.

The real question is whether you can separate a public broadcast layer from a private opt-in layer without breaking the story.

Why it lands in real viewing contexts

This works because it respects how people actually consume media.

Extractable takeaway: If your message has a public-safe version and a private version, keep the broadcast layer mainstream and let the personal device deliver the private layer only after an explicit opt-in.

Phones are personal. TV is social. By moving the steamy content to the second screen, Durex created a “permissioned” experience. By “permissioned,” I mean nothing intimate appears unless the viewer explicitly chooses it, on their own device. Because the broadcast spot only triggers the moment and the app carries the alternative layer, the viewer can opt in privately without turning a shared room into a shared moment.

It also rewards attention. Instead of asking viewers to tolerate an ad, it gives them a reason to participate.

The business intent behind extending TV and radio through an app

The intent is to convert passive reach into active engagement, while keeping the broadcast execution broadly acceptable. This is a smart pattern when you need mass reach but the payoff has to stay private.

Then, on Valentine’s Day this year, Durex UK repeated the same idea via radio. They released a steamy radio spot that also used the Durex Explore app to provide listeners with a similar steamy video experience on their smartphone or tablet.

That is the strategic move. One app. Multiple channels. A consistent interaction model that travels across TV, computer viewing, radio, and mobile.

Second-screen tactics you can reuse

  • Use the second screen for the private layer. Put the content that needs discretion on the personal device.
  • Make participation optional and clear. The viewer should feel in control of switching modes.
  • Design one mechanic that scales across channels. If the app is the interface, TV and radio can both become entry points.
  • Reward attention with a different experience. The second-screen payoff must feel meaningfully distinct from the broadcast spot.

A few fast answers before you act

What did Durex UK do with the Explore app?

They used it to deliver an alternative, steamy second-screen experience for viewers watching a TV ad, and later for listeners hearing a radio spot.

What is the core mechanism?

A broadcast ad acts as the trigger. The mobile app provides the alternative content on a phone or tablet.

Why is second screen a good fit for this category?

Because it keeps intimate content on a personal device, while the broadcast remains suitable for shared environments.

What business goal does this support?

Turning broadcast reach into measurable engagement and creating a repeatable interaction layer that works across channels.

What is the main takeaway for marketers?

If your message has a “public” and “private” version, broadcast the public layer and let the second screen deliver the private layer by choice.

Chevy: Hacking the Super Bowl

Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest TV advertising day in the US. With 50+ advertisers competing for attention, “standing out” is usually code for shouting louder.

Chevrolet takes a different route. With “Chevy Game Time”, it turns the ad break into a live second-screen game. Viewers watch the commercial on TV, then immediately replay it with purpose on their phones.

A second screen that reacts to the broadcast

A “second-screen” experience is a mobile layer that runs alongside a live broadcast and responds to what’s on TV in near real time. Chevy Game Time prompts viewers the moment a Chevy spot airs, asking trivia about what they just saw and rewarding fast, correct answers with points and prizes.

It also adds a high-stakes twist. Every user receives a personal license plate. If you spot your plate inside a Chevy commercial, the car is yours.

The mechanic: turning commercials into a repeatable loop

The loop is simple and effective:

  • Trigger: a Chevy ad hits the broadcast.
  • Action: the app pushes a trivia question about that specific ad.
  • Social effect: Super Bowl parties start “rewatching” the spot together, first on TV, then on the phone, and often again online.
  • Jackpot moment: the personal license plate appears. Somebody wins a car.

That structure doesn’t fight the reality of distracted viewing. It harnesses it.

That works because the trigger arrives while memory is still hot and the reward gives the rewatch a reason.

In mass-audience tentpole broadcasts, second-screen interactivity is often the fastest way to turn passive ad viewing into measurable participation.

Why it lands: it makes attention feel like play

Most second-screen ideas fail because they ask for extra effort with unclear payoff. Chevy Game Time flips that. The reward is obvious, the timing is immediate, and the questions make the room collectively care about the ad’s details.

Extractable takeaway: If you want people to pay attention to a message they did not ask for, make the attention itself the game. Use a tight loop (trigger, action, reward) that starts exactly when the message appears, not five minutes later.

The license-plate mechanic is the accelerant. It converts “maybe I’ll play” into “I’d better look up”, because missing your own plate feels like leaving money on the table.

The business intent: convert reach into proof

Instead of treating TV as pure reach, this approach turns a broadcast into an engagement funnel. Case studies around Chevy Game Time describe scale in the hundreds of thousands of participants, plus high real-time concurrency during the game, and meaningful App Store chart performance during the event window.

It also earns industry credibility. The work is credited to Chevrolet with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and Detroit Labs, and it is associated with major recognition in mobile and multiscreen categories.

The real question is whether a brand can turn one expensive burst of reach into repeated, measurable acts of attention.

And the strategic win is clean. While other brands fight for a single impression, Chevy creates repeated, measurable touchpoints tied directly to its own creative.

What to steal for your next “everyone’s watching” moment

  • Design for rewatching: build a mechanic that naturally makes people replay the ad or replay the key message.
  • Sync to the broadcast: the question must arrive when the spot runs, not when the user remembers later.
  • Make the reward legible: users should understand the payoff in one sentence.
  • Give the group a reason to coordinate: party dynamics multiply attention when the action is communal.
  • Measure beyond downloads: track concurrent players, response rate per trigger, and “ad recall proxies” like question accuracy.

A few fast answers before you act

What is second-screen marketing?

Second-screen marketing is a companion mobile experience designed to run alongside a live broadcast, prompting actions that connect what’s on TV to what’s on a phone, usually in real time.

What made Chevy Game Time different from a normal companion app?

It tied interaction to the exact moment a specific commercial aired, then rewarded attention to that commercial through trivia and a personal “license plate” prize mechanic.

Why does the personal license plate idea matter?

Because it creates urgency and personal stakes. Viewers feel they could miss “their” moment, so they watch more closely and often rewatch immediately to confirm what they saw.

What should you measure in a live second-screen activation?

Track concurrent active users during triggers, response rate per trigger, time-to-answer, repeat participation across multiple ad breaks, and the uplift in brand recall or message comprehension tied to the trivia content.

Can this approach work outside the Super Bowl?

Yes, if you have a predictable live moment (finale, product launch stream, sports match) and you can synchronize prompts to it. The key is timing precision and a reward loop that feels worth the effort.

Volkswagen Beetle: Slowmercial

A lot of people fast-forward TV commercials when watching time-shifted shows. So Volkswagen took the opposite approach and made a deliberately slow, almost static “slowmercial”. In this context, a slowmercial is a TV ad engineered to stay legible when it is played back at high speed.

The idea is simple. When the spot is fast-forwarded on a TV recorder, it collapses into something that feels like a print ad. A single, readable message. A clear product reveal. No complicated storyline to miss.

A tv spot designed for 8x speed

This is not “slow motion” for cinematic drama. It is time engineered as a media format. The frames are composed to hold meaning when they blur together, and the copy and visuals are built to survive the exact behavior viewers use to avoid ads. Because the frames stay stable and the typography stays readable, fast-forward still delivers a complete message instead of noise.

In DVR-heavy TV markets, the remote control is the real media buyer.

Why it lands

It respects the viewer’s habit without pretending it will change. Instead of trying to stop skipping, it designs for skipping. That creates a rare feeling of cleverness, because the ad meets you where you are, and still gives you a complete message. The deeper lesson is that “attention” is not binary. The real question is whether your creative is engineered for how people actually watch, not how you wish they watched.

Extractable takeaway: Treat attention as a spectrum and design one primary message that stays readable under partial attention.

Business intent: keep the message intact

Brands should design for skipping instead of trying to shame or trick viewers into watching. The intent is straightforward. Protect the core benefit and the product impression in a world where traditional 30-second storytelling gets shredded by fast-forward. The slowmercial approach makes sure the Beetle remains visible and understandable, even when the viewer refuses to watch properly.

Steal this for skip-proof creative

  • Design for the behavior, not the ideal. If people skip, build a format that works while skipping.
  • Make one message unmissable. One benefit. One visual proof. One clean takeaway.
  • Borrow from print discipline. Composition, hierarchy, and legibility beat complexity.
  • Assume partial attention as default. Build creative that degrades gracefully instead of collapsing.

A few fast answers before you act

What is a slowmercial?

A slowmercial is a TV ad designed to work even when viewers fast-forward. It uses ultra-slow pacing and print-like composition so the message remains readable at high playback speeds.

Why does fast-forward turn this into a print ad experience?

Because fast-forward compresses time and removes nuance. If the creative is built around stable frames, clear typography, and a single message, the compressed playback still delivers a coherent visual and idea.

When should a brand use this approach?

When you know a meaningful portion of viewing happens time-shifted, and when the ad’s job is to deliver one clean message rather than tell a complex story.

What is the biggest creative mistake with “anti-skipping” ideas?

Over-engineering. If the concept requires explanation, it fails. The viewer must understand the message instantly, even in partial attention.

What metrics matter for this kind of creative?

Ad recall under time-shifted viewing, brand linkage, and message takeout. If you can test it, compare recall for normal-speed versus fast-forward exposure.