Television has long been the most powerful advertising vehicle for generating consumer aspiration. TV ads, when done right, can take us on a rollercoaster of emotions. They can make us want to laugh, cry, and buy. Sales teams often use the term "generating intent" to describe the phenomenon of moving a person from indifference about a product or service to wanting to buy it. A 30-year-old man living in the city may be content with his high-MPG car, but when that exotic Italian sports car appears on screen – backed by a rock-and-roll soundtrack and blasting by impossibly slow traffic at ludicrous speeds – he can't help but feel a bit emasculated. And he can't help but be curious about what it would feel like behind the wheel of the exotic sports car. Television can make people take action unlike any other medium.
On the other end of the advertising spectrum is "harvesting intent" – the process of moving the consumer from aspiration to transaction. This has become a web specialism, where complex algorithms, A/B testing and real-time keyword bidding have rendered the process highly efficient—and also highly mechanical. Consumers who decide to purchase a product or service need only visit the most suitable website and, a few clicks later, they have completed a safe, secure transaction. No medium can rival the ease of the online purchase, where a consumer can buy anything from anywhere in the world.



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Up to this point, however, these two worlds – the world of generating intent, dominated by the television, and the world of harvesting intent, dominated by the internet – have existed separately. While TV ads continue to reach new heights of creativity and production value, it doesn't allow an inspired viewer to take action. And as web advertising becomes more efficient, it is still far from matching TV's emotional appeal. But smartphones are changing consumer behaviours, by bringing both TV and web on your fingertips and increasing the chances of instant purchases.
At the crux of this opportunity lies automatic content recognition, or ACR. ACR technology and content triggering allow applications running on second screen devices to automatically recognise the content being played on the television screen and synchronise the displaying of a digital ad unit in real time. So the man in the city who wants to drive the exotic car can locate the nearest dealer and even schedule a test drive right at the moment of piqued interest – just as the TV ad has been viewed. The marketer doesn't have to go through the costly process of re-locating this potential buyer on the internet—and the potential buyer doesn't have to "remember" that empowering feeling of theoretically rocketing the sports car through the doldrums of the daily commute. What applies to the sports car can also apply to everyday consumables as well – anything from a pizza meal to video-on-demand.
This is one of the most exciting times for advertisers, as the tug-of-war between digital and traditional TV spends can work together in harmony, rather than fight for budget. At the same time, the industry's most creative storytellers and most gifted A/B testers are no longer relegated to opposite ends of the table, but can instead – and should – work with one another so that each can benefit from the strengths of the other. The end result is a net-positive: advertisers (and brands) ensure their content is seen rather than skipped, content providers can sell ads more effectively and appropriately, and viewers can move that much more quickly to act on that stirring instilled emotion: aspiration.