As per the campaign, ITV viewers can use their ITV app to decide how Ant and Dec, who host I’m a Celebrity, fare on their way to the island. In the first ad, the hosts were cast off at sea, and viewers were invited to vote on what happened next to the pair. The content of the following ad is then based on viewers’ choices. "This was a lot of fun to make. It’s a combination of a linear TV and digital TV campaign, using data and smart media planning to create an interactive and engaging journey with the viewers’ favourite duo,” says ITV Creative's executive creative director Tony Pipes. “They are also bloody funny."

Interactivity not only gives fans a chance to engage with their favourite shows on a deeper level, but it also takes advantage of people’s tendency to second-screen at a time when three-quarters of the UK population uses a smartphone while watching TV. What’s more, allowing viewers to band together to influence a storyline taps into a desire for shared entertainment that forms a sense of community. Brands that want to stand out at a time when only 11% of UK consumers report enjoying ads can use interactive features.

Shows like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Puss in Book have pushed interactivity as a new way of engaging viewers. Letting people control of the narrative and giving them a chance to explore, can reveal some interesting tit-bits about viewers. For example, British viewers of Bandersnatch were less willing to waste a cup of tea destroying a computer than viewers in the rest of the world (52% versus 56%). Gaming is another area where interactivity has the potential to drive engagement – Porsche, for instance, revealed its new electric model at a choose-your-own-adventure Twitch event in a bid to lure young consumers.

Isabel Evans is a junior behavioural analyst at Canvas8. Fascinated by how and why people do things, she has an MSc in cognitive and decision sciences from UCL. You can often find her drinking endless coffees, running around Regent’s Park, or delving into a book.