The research, by Symphony Advanced Media (AM) in collaboration with the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), found that favourability and unaided awareness were 51% and 22% higher when survey respondents were exposed to both TV and online, compared to TV only.

SymphonyAM used a software meter installed on desktop and mobile devices to track social media, apps and web usage, while in-built automatic content recognition in the mobile software was used to identify when participants were watching TV and what they were watching based on the acoustic fingerprint of the broadcast.

CIMM’s managing director Jane Clarke said: “SymphonyAM’s research has uncovered the first step to eradicating problematic ad effectiveness measurement models.” Current industry measurement methodologies, she said, are “severely flawed”.

The research also found that TV ad viewers typically spend 30–40% of ad viewing time using a mobile device. The partners said that this finding validates industry assumptions that “deploying cross-platform ad campaigns can help marketers more effectively reach consumers who may be focused on one medium over another”.