1.       A positive Consumer Experience (CX) (for the whole journey, from search through fulfillment).

2.       A reasonable and clear “ask” in terms of their time, money, personal data, and attention.

3.       To see real value for the deliverable content or service.

4.       Trust in and transparency from the brand and provider delivering the desired reward.

Rewarded advertising is barter - in a direct and explicit form: “this for that”, or Quid Pro Quo in Latin. It is not a vague sense that advertising pays for content without a clear definition of how much consumer must “spend” in time, money, personal data or attention. With implicit assumptions of past ad-supported media models such as television, companies have increased interruptive, in-program ad loads to the point most TV has become unwatchable without recording & ad-skipping technology. The consumer has rarely been asked explicitly to exchange their attention for content/services as he/she/they have below:

Above: The bridge between free and fee - Allows customers to CHOOSE between subscribing or engaging with a full-screen interactive ad, with the reward of free entry

Let’s look at those four “asks” of consumers and how see how research and digital providers are beginning to approach them, even without the direct barter of rewarded advertising:

Money
•  NBCU’s Peacock has innovated in its launch offering, expanding the streaming service standard from 2 to 3 tiers of pricing, including a new free, limited content tier:

Tier 1: Free access to 2/3rds of Peacock’s library with 5 minutes/hour of ads; no payment card required.

Tier 2: $4.99/mo. access to full Peacock library including originals, option for next day viewing of NBC programs.

Tier 3: $9.99/mo. Access to full library plus a few more sports with virtually no ads.

• Most other services use a kind of “Freemium” model with a short term free trial that “you can cancel at any time.”  However, the sticking point for consumers is they must provide a payment card that withdraws money when the free trial expires. This often leads to surprise charges with no refunds for the first month, except for the most micro-managing of us. It also can feel to consumers like a “bait and switch”.

Personal Data
• Accenture found that:

◦  “Two-thirds of consumers are willing to share personal information with companies [they trust].” Rewarded ads can gather up key 1st party data, however the trust factor mustn’t be violated.

• Merkle's 1H 2020 Consumer Sentiment Report released this month learned:

◦ Half of respondents indicated that they felt brands knew too much about them.

Attention
• Is the attention given by the consumer forced on them or a choice?

• eMarketer reports that for gaming users, three-quarters of US Millennials preferred opt-in rewarded ads over interstitial.

Turnstil Update
• Turnstil Co-Founder and CMO John Osborn is a panelist at AdMonster’s Publisher Forum Virtual on Tuesday, August 25, 12:25 pm ET. He and TV[R]EV Co-Founder/Lead Analyst Alan Wolk talk about CTV and Digital Video.

• Turnstil is looking for a digital publisher or streaming T/V service to partner in a charter launch of the Turnstil technology platform, funded by an interested advertiser.

• If you are interested in partnering as an advertiser, a publisher, T/V streaming service or tech platform serving publishers or advertisers, please set up an appointment with Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer John R. Osborn through this Calendly link.