The past five years have also seen the rise and fall of marketers using hashtags to drive calls to action. In 2012, under 2% of national TV ads used a hashtag to drive consumer interactions, according to the iSpot.tv research. Hashtags quickly became more prevalent, hitting their peak in TV commercials in the fourth quarter of 2014, when 8% of national ads included them. There was Charmin’s #TweetFromTheSeat campaign, in 2014, which urged consumers to send tweets from the toilet. Doritos’ #CrashTheSuperBowl. Coca-Cola’s #ShareACoke.
In 2015, according to iSpot.tv CEO Sean Muller, call-to-action hashtags began falling out of TV commercials. By January 2016, they appeared in 3% of national spots. Now they’re under 2% again. “I think advertisers have gotten smarter about driving consumers to their own properties, where they have the direct relationship, as opposed to driving it to a third-party website,” Muller said.
Will Jarvis. Hashtags’ Boon in TV Commercials is Over. Ad Age.