What is Green Button advertising?

Green Button ‘Bookable' advertising is a service which allows viewers to easily watch and access extended  - or ‘long form' - advertising.  Built upon the same underlying technology as the successful Green Button programme reminder service, advertisers are able to encourage viewers to press the Green Button on their Sky remote to book longer-form content into their Sky Guide or to record content onto their Sky+ or Sky+HD set-top box. The ads sits alongside programmes in their planner.

Through the Green Button, viewers are offered the opportunity of watching extended versions of ads, finding out more about particular products or services, or accessing related behind-the-scenes or exclusive footage.  In short, they can book it, control it, own it and share it.

This could include, for example:

• an extended edit of an existing linear TV ad - where original footage was cut in order to work within the confines of traditional linear ad breaks
• a behind the scenes ‘making of' documentary, outlining how a particularly innovative ad was created
• access to exclusive content, performances or extras that relates to an advertiser’s products or services - particularly well suited to record companies, movie studios and other media or gaming companies with access to content and talent, or...
• advertiser episodes - in the tradition of the Nescafe couple and Oxo family

Green Button content can range from 2 minutes to 2 hours and the service even allows for the series-linking of advertising content, for those brands wishing to create episodic advertising.

Each piece of advertiser-created programming is made available to Sky homes with standard digi boxes twice a day - viewers are prompted with an on-screen reminder to watch a selected ad when it becomes available.  However, in 6.1 million Sky+ homes, viewers have the opportunity to have the ad stored on their Sky+ planner for playback at a time of their choosing.

Green button advertising is available across 70 channels carried on the Sky platform.

Which brands are using Green Button advertising?

Here’s a selection of campaigns that have taken advantage of this latest interactive TV format:

• John Smiths: their green button content showed the making of the ad and also outtakes with the legendary Peter Kay.
• Barclaycard (BBH): viewers got the chance to get behind the scenes of that great waterslide ad, and see how it was made. 73,000 households were interested enough to do just that.
• Comparethemarket.com: despite having had more than 50 marriage proposals via social-networking sites and being 113th most influential Twitterer, humorous meerkat Aleksandr Orlov has still found time to get involved with the green button. Fans can watch Aleksandr and Sergei’s “special outtakes tape guaranteed for laughs”, on their spanking new big tellies, and watch it time and time again. Simples!
• Sharwood's sauces (Starcom): two Sharwood’s advertorials show how to make the exotic easy. Chefs demonstrate how the Sharwood’s range of sauces can be used to cook dishes such as Pad Thai and Rogan Josh.
• Warner Bros for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (PHD): used green-button content to premiere preview clips from the studio's big summer release. Voldemort is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is on longer the safe haven it once was. 25,000 households booked the content and average dwell time was 2 mins 18 seconds.
• FX True Blood: exclusive footage  and unique interview with series creator Alan Ball. Green button is great for entertainment brands, and for this one, viewers spend an average of 2 mins 39 secs with the extra content.
• Macmillan Cancer Support (PHD): three short films show people talking about their experience of how cancer has had an impact on their lives, and how Macmillan Cancer Support has been able to support them.
• Sky+HD: Sky used the green button to demonstrate the new Sky+ HD guide, and how it helps viewers to watch and record the TV they love. The content also showcased new features such as Mini TV and enhanced search.
• Sainsburys (Drum): this green button content builds on the 'Try Team' campaign and features videos of different team members demonstrating how to cook healthy food using basic ingredients. It is the first campaign to use “series link” functionality to request green button advertiser content.

What is the industry saying about Green Button?

"Green Button provides brands with the opportunity to develop high-quality long-form content catering to those audiences who want a closer relationship with particular brands, or who would value access to exclusive content which has been developed or funded by an advertiser. And with the added functionality of Sky+, they can interact with those brands at a time of their choosing."

Jamie West, Head of Futures at Sky Media

"Increasingly we are recommending that our clients invest in the creation of content to stand out in a cluttered media landscape, particularly in an on-demand context. However, if content is king then distribution is the kingmaker and careful consideration must be paid towards how ‘push' and ‘pull' advertising work together. As a result PHD & Drum have worked very closely with Sky to ensure we maximise the opportunities around green button advertising, which we feel has the potential to be a great content delivery system for some of our clients."

Rupert Britton, Strategy Director - Content, PHD

"We're excited about playing a role in Sky's green button launch and helping to shape this new interactive service from the very beginning."

Sarah Bird, Head of Marketing (Film), Warner Home Video

"Green button technology offers advertisers a cost effective solution to showing and developing long form content. Great long form content is often restricted to online, with this technology, advertisers now have the opportunity to drive longer brand engagement which viewers chose to download to their pvr.”

Rob Cootes, TV Manager. Vizeum

“The question isn't why would you use green button, but why wouldn't you do green button? Most advertisers would sell their children to get incremental consumer engagement. TV as an audiovisual medium delivers entertainment and, if in doing so, a brand can encourage active consumers, as opposed to passive, it's all the better for TV as a whole.”

Sarah Jane Ashley, Head of TV planning, Mediaedge:cia.
(Source Mediaweek)

Summary

Green button delivers full screen video (of up to 2 hours length) that you can pause or rewind and even series link. For advertisers it’s an excellent delivery vehicle for entertaining branded content and for demonstration. If the advertiser’s content is good enough, consumers will actively choose to save it for later, watch it and share it.  Green-button advertising has been developed in response to demand from advertisers, which are increasingly creating additional video content for their websites and viral campaigns and wish to exploit that content through TV. For viewers, they can own the content they like or are interested in, view it at time of their own convenience and share it with family and friends.