The dual screen frontier: First ‘Blippable’ TV ad to air tonight on Channel 5

The world’s first TV ad enabled with Blippar will air tonight on Channel 5 in the run up to the launch of the new Star Trek film.

Channel 5, Blippar, Paramount Pictures and MEC have joined forces to create the ad for ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’, which will allow viewers to interact with the advert via the Blippar application.

For the next two weeks across Channel 5, 5* and 5USA, Blippar app users will be able to hold their smartphones up to the TV screen, to then be taken to a bespoke ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ interface where they will be able to watch trailers and purchase and win cinema tickets.

Emily Fairhead-Keen, business director at MEC, commented: “Screen synchronicity is not a ‘nice to have’ any more, it’s a critical part of our planning.

“We should embrace smarter ways to engage consumers on both screens, especially with categories such as entertainment, which lend themselves so well to user engagement and the sourcing of additional content and prizing.”

John Fletcher, marketing director of Paramount said that running dual screen activity is a good opportunity to explore more ‘creative’ and ‘smarter’ ways of dual screening.

This is the third partnership between Channel 5, Paramount and MEC in the past 18 months. The campaign will run until the film’s release on 9 May.