When I found this article on TVNewsday, I knew I had to post it. This might be my favorite article to post this year because it is such a relevant topic to the class. TiVo is working on interactive ads that show up even when you are zapping through commercials. Even though you still have to click to follow them, is this too intrusive? And might this be a productive way to defend the power of DVRs?
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
Published: April 22, 2009
The company that attacked television advertising is trying to resuscitate it.
Skip to next paragraph
Enlarge This Image
A TiVo interactive ad. In this one for the Disneynature film “Earth,” a viewer must click to get more information.
TiVo, which allows viewers to digitally record programs and fast-forward through ads, is trying to sell ad spaces on its screens.
It is in a footrace with other companies, including Cablevision, Cox Communications and DirecTV, to offer interactive alternatives to the zapped-through television spots. The ads are called interactive because they ask the viewer to do something — enter in a new channel number, press a button on the remote — to get more information.
“In the last 18 months, the momentum has just lifted,” said Jacqueline Corbelli, the chief executive of BrightLine iTV, which designs interactive ads. “It’s started to become a staple of very large advertisers.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/business/media/23adco.html?_r=1
3 comments:
I don't know, I mean just from the article alone, I do not fully understand the dynamics of interactive ads, however I think this is a feature that will annoy me as a consumer more than anything. The little text-ad "pop-ups"-if I'm to call them that- during fastforward would be even more so annoying than the ones during a pause.Unless if it does not affect the fast-forwarding process in anyway-which I was not able to deduce from the article. It may not be so bothersome though if it is inconspicous enough to, I guess not be bothersome (hopefully that makes sense). But I doubt advertisers would make it that inconspicous.
It would be annoying because the reason why I am fastforwarding through the commercials is because I actually do not care to see commercials...and then bam! there they are again.
Now, in terms of wanting viewers to interact and press buttons and all of that...ummm no. I think consumers are way too lazy for all that work. Unless if the interactive ad meets the consumer at a point-of-interest or point-of-need (i.e a product or service that the viewer is currently looking to purchase).
Oh and I forgot to mention that as much as I do find the interactive ad by unilever kind of intrusive (I mean I don't think collecting information about people without their knowledge will go down very well with many people...but then again, I guess there'll be a clause in the "terms of agreement" or something), what actually interests me the most is that this definitely shows that in the next ten years or so figuring out ratings by diary or meter system will definitely be obsolete!
Is this form of advertising intrusive? Of course it is, but it's no more intrusive than other means. Advertisers buy attention through eyeballs, and there's no other way to attract eyeballs than to be distracting and intrusive. If I had my way I would live in my own little bubble, going about my day without distractions. But if this were the case I would, more then likely, buy less advertised product.
That being said I don't think that this form of advertising should be looked at as any worse than banners on a web page. These banners give you a little bit of information and require to to click on them to get more. Isn't that the exact same premise we are working under here, but in a different venue? Why should programming on television, be it live, prerecorded at a studio, or prerecorded at the users home be any different from web-based programming.
In this personal-on-demand society in which we find ourselves, the lines that once defined our different input channels for media are blurring more and more every day. for example:"A device has audio and video monitoring, storage, and processing." I've just described an array of devices, Ipods, TV's, Computers, and even in-car-entertainment systems. The advertisers are simply doing what they do best: chase the consumer through whatever means gains them eyeballs.
If anything providing space for interactive advertising is one of the least revolutionary and most predictable things that that DVR service providers could have done. As long as the ad aren't trying to sell me Brawndo because it's got electrolytes and that's what plants crave, I think we'll be just fine.
Post a Comment