Audience numbers for Twitter's package of NFL "Thursday Night Football" live-streams has been "called 'underwhelming' by some sponsors," according to Garrett Sloane of AD AGE. An agency exec said that a client who sponsored the games "could even ask for 'make-good' ad inventory during future programs." The exec said, "We're seeing a significant under-delivery from Twitter for our spots. The problem is people aren't watching full games." Sloane notes Texans-Patriots, Twitter's second live-stream, "delivered 327,000 average-minute viewers," while its first first live-stream, Jets-Bills, averaged 243,000. Another agency exec said that Twitter had "anticipated 500,000 average viewers, though it did not guarantee that." Bank of America, which advertised during the live streams, said that Twitter "hit the numbers that were expected, delivering 2.1 million total views to the live-stream when it anticipated 1.5 million." Bank of America SVP/Enterprise Media Exec Lou Paskalis in a statement said, "We're feeling pretty good about it from a business standpoint. I know we're feeling great about it from an experience standpoint." However, Sloane writes, the "problem is that the audience is good, but it's not TV-good, and that's where the expectations game may have burned some advertisers." Another agency exec said, "If any brands expected them to have the kind of viewership seen on television, it's just not realistic. Our clients knew it was very much a test and not seen as being more profound than that" (ADAGE.com, 10/7).
