Now this is interesting for regional advertisers, and it could be the future of TV advertising — or just another crazy experiment! But my bet is that this will stick, so long as there is no backlash from networks who will lose out on some ad dollars.
Dish Network Corp. is bringing in a company to deliver specific ads to individual households, an idea that is gaining more attention in marketer circles.
Dish, which provides satellite-TV services to nearly 13.8 million customers nationwide, has agreed to use technology from Invidi Technologies to deliver what it calls “addressable, targeted and local TV advertising.” Many of the company’s receivers will support the sending of specific ads as well as inserting commercials into video streams. Granted, the regional subscribers are low in number when compared to cable or broadcast, but the targeted nature makes this buy that much more effective.
Other venues
Invidi’s technology will enable Dish “to target any geographic or demographic footprint advertisers are interested in reaching to deliver their message with measurement and accountability,” said Michael Kelly, exec VP, Dish Network, in a statement.
If the method gains traction and shows positive results, it could spread to other venues. Many advertisers have shown more interest in the capabilities of cable, satellite and phone companies to use set-top boxes and other receivers to prompt more interaction between the average couch potato and the once-passive TV. A host of parties, including Canoe Ventures, a consortium led by the cable industry that is also studying the possibilities of interactive TV, and an interactive-advertising test led in Baltimore by Comcast Corp. and Starcom MediaVest Group, is racing to see if the notion has legs.
The development of technology that turns a once-passive medium into a two-way conversation generator is responsible for all the activity. As consumers spend more time with the internet and other digital media, their likes and dislikes can be measured more concretely than they can when it comes to watching traditional TV. Consumers who are lured in by a web ad often respond to it by clicking to learn more or even making a purchase. That’s often more than the average TV advertiser gets in the way of monitoring response.
Different technologies
The push to graft the interactive capabilities of the web onto the TV has met with resistance. Simply put, each major cable, satellite or phone company has varying technology, meaning it’s hard if not impossible to put a national interactive ad into play that can work simultaneously across all the different companies that act as an intermediary between the viewer and the advertiser. If General Motors Corp. wanted to run a national ad that let viewers click their remotes to set up a test drive, the automotive marketer would have to navigate through everything ranging from TiVo to Comcast to Verizon to make sure its entreaty would be seen by the nation’s entire TV-viewing populace.
One of Invidi’s backers predicted more interest in the ability to deliver specific ads to particular households. “We are at the beginning of the targeted-advertising era,” suggested Irwin Gotlieb, global chief executive for WPP Group’s Group M, an Invidi investor.
The Comcast Baltimore test is also using the INVIDI Technology. The real interesting part of the release is the mention of Dish’s relationship with Google. Google never brought any compelling technology to Dish with their TV Ads program. All it really did was introduce a theoretic way to buy inventory in a more efficient way. It appears that TV Ads is being kicked to the curb by Dish making the first major failure by the gang at Google. They will now probably now buy INVIDI.