Shazam is The Future of TV Advertising

Shazam LogoI never saw this coming. Shazam has completely transformed the TV Advertising experience. Big brands have already started embracing it. All you need to do is whip out your phone and Shazam the tune playing during the ad and it will direct you to a mobile site where you can directly buy the product.

Tide and Old Navy have been playing ads with Shazam nationally. Here is the Old Navy ad.

Screen Shot of Old Navy Ad displaying the Shazam Icon on YouTube

The Old Navy ad is very cool. You can buy the exact outfit the person is wearing on click of the “Shop The Look” button after you Shazam the song playing in the commercial.

Shazam and OldNavy Iphone Screen Shot

Shazam has done something awesome for TV ads. Increase conversions! No longer do you have to direct the viewer to a website address. What are the chances that someone will whip out their phone and actually type in the web URL? Very low… I don’t think I have ever done it. Conversions from TV Ad -> product view -> purchase is going to be on the up and up!

Another major benefit is we can now have a better understanding of how well TV Advertisements perform.

Way to go Shazam! Brilliant name, brilliant technology, and now brilliant application to TV advertising.

32 Comments

  1. Awesome article. I had seen the Shazam symbol on ads but didn’t realize what it was until reading this. I guess it’s serving the same purpose of Google’s QR codes!

  2. Nice post!! There was a Gray’s Anatomy episode a while back where ABC teamed up with Nielsen to create an ipad app that you launched during the episode. It gave you extra content like quizzes, behind the scenes footage, etc.

    What Shazam is doing for ads is even better because while I’m watching a TV show, extra content could be cool but I don’t want to be distracted. But during commercials, I have nothing better to do. So being able to view more details about a product or even purchase would be awesome. Opens up a huge opportunity for brands and retailers.

    • Manisha – I never even thought of that. You can Shazam! TV Shows/Movies/Concerts… really anything with audio to get behind the scene videos or places to buy the DVD or CD or bonus features.

      Concerts can easily sell more apparel. They can be like Shazam any of my songs and pre order my latest CD right from your phone. The buying process is also super smooth since iTunes already has your credit card info handy.

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  4. Check out IntoNow. It takes this idea one step further by being able to identify the exact show (and point in the show you are watching). With this technology if you are watching Mad Men and like Don Draper’s suit you can use IntoNow to find out more about that suit while watching the episode.

  5. Eh. Maybe a fad. I’m waiting for a type of video shazam/barcode you zap to take you right to info sites. I doubt it will stay audio centric. Who knows.

    • Lets see what happens. Old Navy and Tide are using it on nationwide TV Ads already. So I guess we will find out soon if it will go super mainstream.

    • I think its a powerful tool to augment custom jingles and songs, as well as re-purposed music that people use in ads. If you get enough people to shazam a song that they like and offer a free download to the song there is a clear value add.

      I bet this behavior happens already and is already mainstream. I know people that shazam songs all the time from tv. The brands are smart to encode it directly with shazam as it helps them track it and make a nice tag-along branding.

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