Beyond exposure: Interactive television and the new media currency

Significant effort in advertising is directed towards maximising exposure — to ensure that, for example, a broadcast audience is exposed to an optimum number of messages in a media planning schedule. ‘Interactivity’ as it is emerging, however, has a dramatic effect on traditional assumptions about frequency and reach (how many times the message is repeated and how extensively it is received). Interactivity potentially shifts choice back to the audience, allowing a ‘bypassing’ of attempts to repeat messages. Audiences, given the choice, simply will avoid advertisements that are designed primarily for exposure. Audiences in an environment where they can personalise and customise a medium according to their preferences — and indeed become ‘producers\u27 of content themselves — will be looking for content that is designed for elaboration, rather than only repetition. There is a background to this emerging trend and it is explored in this paper