Quantifying Curiosity: The Science Behind Interactive CTV Ads

BrightLine was joined on stage by Warner Bros. Discovery and MediaScience at Advertising Week New York.

Setting the Stage

At this year’s Quantifying Curiosity panel during Advertising Week New York, BrightLine brought together leaders from Warner Bros. Discovery and MediaScience to answer one question driving the connected TV marketplace: Does interactivity really move the needle for advertisers?

Hosted by Jenny Thompson, Director of Marketing at BrightLine, the discussion featured BrightLine Co-Founder and President Rob Aksman, Evan Giamanco, SVP of Ad Product & Revenue Strategy at Warner Bros. Discovery, and Phillip Lomax, EVP at MediaScience. 

Together, they explored how new research is proving that interactive CTV ad formats are doing far more than creating buzz – they’re delivering measurable business results.

Engagement is the New Attention Lever

Interactive CTV ads are redefining what engagement means for television. Viewers are no longer passive spectators, they are active participants. Each remote click is a signal of intent that turns exposure into interaction, and interaction into measurable brand impact.

“Engagement is the next evolution of attention,” said Rob Aksman, President and Co-Founder of BrightLine. “The higher the engagement rate, the higher the impact.” His point underscored a growing truth across connected TV: interaction – not just visibility – is what drives results.

Evan Giamanco, SVP of Ad Product & Revenue Strategy at Warner Bros. Discovery, echoed that sentiment from the network side. “For the first time, we can quantify engaged time, interaction, recall, and ultimately purchase intent,” he explained. “It gives television the kind of measurable performance advertisers have come to expect from digital.”

Together, their perspectives make one thing clear: engagement isn’t a secondary metric, it’s the lever that connects attention to action in the modern TV experience.

Measuring the Impact of Engagement

To quantify those outcomes, BrightLine partnered with MediaScience, a leader in audience research, to design a controlled study that examined how different levels of interactivity correlate with brand impact. The study, detailed in The Engagement Effect whitepaper, used MediaScience’s StreamPulse CTV research platform to simulate real-world TV viewing environments, complete with remote controls, full-screen programming, and actual interactive ad units.

The results were clear:

• Higher engagement = higher impact. Households with higher interaction rates saw stronger lifts in brand recall and purchase intent.

• Remote control ads outperform. Formats driven by remote interaction outperformed QR code-based ads by roughly 125x in engagement.

• Across-the-board lifts. Interactive ads generated double-digit gains in brand recall, favorability, ad likability, and purchase intent compared to standard video.

As Lomax put it, “We’re testing television on television because that’s where television lives.” This commitment to ecological validity gives the findings uncommon precision: interactive ads don’t just entertain; they embed deeper in memory and drive tangible action.

From Insights of Engagement to Brand Execution

The panel also spotlighted several standout campaigns where BrightLine’s formats powered Warner Bros. Discovery’s content integrations. Examples included:

• State Farm x Batman: A trivia-based ad tied to DC content that achieved nearly 50% household engagement, the highest-performing campaign in BrightLine’s history.

• Discover x Minecraft: A creative, low-lift trivia execution leveraging cultural IP without licensing fees, proof that interactivity doesn’t have to mean complexity.

• Popeyes: An interactive carousel that let viewers explore new dipping sauces, showing how product engagement can be both playful and performance-driven.

• BMW x The White Lotus: A geo-targeted unit that connected viewers directly to local dealerships, merging brand storytelling with lower-funnel utility.

Each example reinforced a central point: when interactivity is designed intentionally around campaign KPIs, it elevates outcomes across the funnel.

What It Means for Brand Marketers

The discussion closed with a clear consensus. CTV interactivity isn’t experimental anymore; it’s expected. With nearly every major U.S. streamer now supporting BrightLine powered formats and billions of interactive CTV impressions served annually, these experiences are rapidly becoming standard across premium video. 

As Aksman summarized, “This is well beyond the test phase. Interactivity is now a permanent part of how top brands plan their campaigns.”

For advertisers, the takeaway is straightforward, making engagement the standard. The science proves that the brands leading in interactive CTV see measurable lift in awareness, favorability, and intent.

Want to learn more? Read BrightLine’s The Engagement Effect whitepaper.