You Will be Able to Buy Beckham’s Bodywear by Remote Control During the Super Bowl

Of the hundreds of thousands of spectators who tune in to watch the Super Bowl each year, it’s safe to say a good chunk of them aren’t there just to watch dudes in spandex toss around a pigskin, or even to see Grammy Award-winners (Bruno Mars this year) perform at halftime. Some are only there for the highly-anticipated commercial breaks. And this year, they’ll be able to shop the big game’s commercials instantly from Samsung Smart TVs.

At this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, t-commerce firm Delivery Agent announced a partnership with retailer H&M to power the first shoppable TV commercial.

The move brings t-commerce to life and into Super Bowl parties full of potential shoppers.

Using Delivery Agent’s t-commerce platform, H&M will become the first retailer to launch a fully-enabled t-commerce campaign, giving it the potential to instantly monetize on its 30-second Super Bowl XLVIII ad featuring international soccer star David Beckham.

“We’re combining two of the things people love to do most: shopping and watching television,” Delivery Agent CEO Mike Fitzsimmons says. “If we can shorten the path to purchase, we have the opportunity to do something pretty transformative.”

The ad, which will air during the second quarter of the game, will introduce the nine-piece Spring collection of David Beckham Bodywear.

“It’s part of H&M’s DNA to surprise and delight our customers, and we’re thrilled to be the first retailer to engage with our audience in real-time during the Super Bowl,” H&M spokesperson Jennifer Ward says.

Fitzsimmons says t-commerce is the natural next step to commerce and omni-channel retailing: shoppers can make purchases in-store, online, on their smartphones and tablets, why not on their TVs?

Using automatic content recognition (ACR) technology, Delivery Agent is able to know when the commercial airs and enable the purchase option, which will appear on Samsung Smart TV owners’ screens as a pop-up menu. With one click of their remote (or via their smartphones with previously-registered numbers), viewers can opt to make a purchase, without ever leaving or pausing what their watching.

As TVs become more Internet-connected, advertisers will be able to better take advantage of t-commerce tools. Paying for Super Bowl ad spots isn’t cheap -- commercials aired during the game cost an estimated average $3.7 million to $3.8 million for the half-minute of exposure, according to AdAge. Still, the game draws in an average audience of 108.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

According to Fitzsimmons, the average U.S. household still watches more than five hours of television a day. And a recent eMarketer.com study reported that the number of smart TV owners in the U.S. has grown to almost one in five. Delivery Agent conducted a survey to gauge the public’s interest in shopping via television and found 68% of people would be very interested in doing so.

But t-commerce isn’t a new concept for Delivery Agent. The company has been in the t-commerce business since 2005 and has worked to make shoppable items on several TV shows, including Modern Family, New Girl, Downton Abbey and Duck Dynasty.

“If you think about what this looked like 10 years ago versus where we are today,” Fitzsimmons says, “we think it’s unprecedented and an exciting development for an industry starving for innovation.”