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Tivo Plans Commercials On Demand
MCSqrd writes "News.com reports that Tivo will soon feature interactive ads that apparently link from ordinary television commercials. Viewers can activate the link and view extended, interactive content about the product being advertised.
Tivo hopes to 'tune in' to a way to keep advertisers on their side since the idea of TV commercials being made obsolete because of PVRs has made them an enemy to marketing departments everywhere.
Is anyone else reminded of the blipverts from the Max Headroom series?"
Advertisers can put ads on websites and if a user is attracted and interested in the product, they can click the banner and learn more about the product.
The system doesn't work.
I have been pwned because my
Thats actually not too bad of an idea. I know lots of times I'll be watching TV, see something interesting, and then head over to the computer to find out more about it. What would be really cool, if we could pick what type of commercials we want to view. God knows I don't need to see that damn tampax sinking boat commercial one more time! Not a crazy idea, think how well sites like adcritic.com did.
I believe that before long, the TV ad model will shift radically (for that medium anyway). Just as ads are "integrated" into newspaper and magazine content (sharing the page), web content and even the landscape, ads on TV will soon appear along with the content.
The reason this shared model works in those other mediums is simple: people will not volunteer to read ads in any meaningful way. Ads in a "volunteer" model are only viewed by people already interested in or involved with the subject. Ads currently also serve the far broader and more valuable (to advertisers anyway) function of exposing poeple to "new" things. in life, as in target marketing, the things we covet the most are often the most elusive. A lot of the people who will want to see an ad for some boring car are probably people who already bought one and are reveling in post-purchase reinforcement behavior. The guy who likes his current boring car breezes past the ad.
Soon, when you are watching that Seinfeld re-run on your wide screen HiDef TV, you'll see that the content is really the same size and there's an advertising sidebar touting Craftsman (TM) Tools or Noxema or whatever.
Currently, it appears that the loose boundry is at network self-promos ("watch such and such on Friday" stuff in the lower third), but some day soon, we'll see a little animated Lexus cruise across the bottom of the screen during "The Apprentice." Look at the Discovery Channel now--they're champing at the bit for this.
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
I think where Tivo will make the most headway will be with smaller cable networks. The problem is, there aren't very many of them left. Why do I say this? The major networks (all of whom either own major cable channels or have major investments in cable providers) are wholly against Tivo poaching "their" ad dollars. Their attitude is that if they're going to allow Tivo to put up adverts (and they need to pass some sort of signal to provide this capability) then they want a cut of the action.
The only way around this is for Tivo to go court the little guys, and thus force the incumbents to follow their lead, or lose ad dollars. I imagine the advertisers are curious to try this feature - the only question is, will they get the chance?
Another revenue source that Tivo really ought to be persuing is movies-on-demand. They should try streaming data in much the same way Disney's Moviebeam does, only over broadband connections (for those who have it.) Thus, for the marginal cost of a "premium" subscription, users can also order the latest movies. I don't think that many people would end up keeping this movie-on-demand service, but it'd be a great lure for people to sign up for Tivo service in general, and for them to keep the basic scheduling service.
I willing watched a Ford commercial about a 500 HP car they got coming out soon, and the Chevy showcase that they had a couple of months ago. Some of the showcase things are goofy, but I guess they have a large potential audience to vie for, and rotate ads accordingly. Heck, they are about the only commercials I watch now. Occasionally, I will find myself catching a glimpse of an interesting commercial while in 30 second skip and will rewind it to see what the ad was. I'm MadAve's wet dream, someone who will seek out their commercials, but it has to look interesting in the .000045 seconds it takes me to hit the 30 second button again :^)
"As the intrepid kobold companion continues his journey, he begins to wonder... if priests raises dead, why anybody die?
because... (drumroll)... there were no commercials.
A technology attempting to defeat commercials wants to have commercials. How unpredictable.
Well, mine (I have two version 1 tivos) is set up to do all updates via a Wi-Fi connection. It's not really set up for it, but if you hack your tivo you can set it up to download forcasts, email, and the like. I agree that for video it's a lot better just to buy the time on the Discovery channel and have the machine save it, but what I was saying is that Tivo boxes could probably also do some of the services that cable companies were supposed to do better than they do now. With the services that have came out for version 2 tivos, it looks like they are headed that direction themselves.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
First off, it's already been mentioned but I'll say it again - the technology has been in use for a while. I can remember the first time I took advantage of this and watched a whole half hour segment on the Chrysler Crossfire.
The point I really wanted to make though is that a service like Tivo has the ability to change how commercials are delivered and viewed. I'll admin I enjoy watching *some* commercials. If I can watch targeted ads about things I'm interested in (technology, home improvement, food/wine) or could look actually pick commercials in a season-pass sort of way to find truly unique ones (like the Rube-Golberg inspired 'Cog' commercial from Honda) I'd surf commercials out of curiosity. I think the advertising industry could start making stars out of ad directors/designers/producers much like people follow certain individuals who create the shows we watch. Maybe it seems a bit far out, but Tivo has the technology to deliver the next generation of advertising.
--"I am a strong believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it." -- Benjamin Franklin
The key thing is it has to be done intelligently. Present the spiel, then let the end user wander through information about the product. Eg: car adverts: things like torque, horsepower, fuel economy, safety features, etc. Let the user feel like he's in control, not the advertiser. I'm sure that adverts of that nature would be of greater use to the end user than adverts saying "But wait! There's more! If you buy now, you get this FREE SET OF STEAK KNIVES!"
The only interaction I want with commercials is when i press fast forward. Actually, I don't want to interact with them at all if possible.I know what I want and Amazon.com servers my need for reviews quite well.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
...and they already have the basic system to do a lot of this. Instead of pressing thumbs up for the SHOWS they'll be doing that for the commercials, too... they can get a database of liked commercials just like they can get a database of liked tv shows.
now all you have to do is get the custom commercials down to the machine.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
...so I bet they're going to measure the success of these commercials based on the click-through ratio? Goodness knows that worked for web ads, right? Right?
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Ultimately the 'long' 30-60 second ad is shown at 2am on discovery when it costs next-to-nothing to advertise.
Then the advertiser can get away with running short 'teaser' ads at primetime to entice users to either go to the web or their tivo to find out what it's all about.
The simple answer is that adverts need to get better. Some people, myself included, are far more interested in the ads than the superbowl - that's proof enough that if advertisers try hard enough then they can make ads worth watching.
If an ad's not clever, witty or inspiring then i'm never going to want to watch it.
Maybe with a system like this in place, advertisers will finally air all the cool commercials seen online and overseas. That Honda "Cogs" advert was the coolest thing never seen on US television. Tivo is providing an outlet for advertisers to show extended ads like that from Honda. This also gives opportunity to showcase great storymercials, like Reebok's Terry Tate. The "skip commercials" argument is bogus - most people buy a Tivo to replace the VCR. Ask most people why they actually watch the entire Super Bowl every year - its the adverts. So there IS a big viewer market for good advertising.
I have a TiVo 1 I just need to fix the modem at some point. But when it was working I actually watched more Commercials then I have done before. On Normal TV when there is a commercial I naturally tune out and focus on something other then TV. But with the TiVo I now focus on Fast forwarding threw commercials, so my eyes are on every commercial moving past me at 4x speed, seeing every logo, and if something in the commercial was truly eye catching I stopped rewind and watched it again, normal. When I had the TiVo I was far more consumer savvy then I am now with disabled TiVo.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Hell of a lot more powerful than you realize. There are a number of factors that make a commercial powerfull (these are in ascending order).
1 - Brand Recognition: Just putting that Nike Swoosh on the screen reminds me who Nike is, why I should buy their product, and brings to mind decades of advertising and social conditioning.
2 - Rational Argument: Our product costs less, our product does X. Statments of fact leading a consumer to choose one product over another. Informing the customer about the product. These are key, particulary for large purchases.
3 - Irrational Argument: Warm "feel good" images cause people to associate a product with an emotion or set of desired circumstances. You see this most in prepackaged food ads. Note the family sitting down to dinner together, note the wholsome looking meal, everyone smiling, etc. The families these ads are targed at genrealy don't have the time for this, and frequently mom and dad desire it.
4 - Coolness Factor: Product endorsements fit in here. This is particularly influential over children. Be like Mike anyone?
5 - Social Impact: The most powerfull advertising weapon of all and the hardest to tame. The creation of a commericial that gets people talking about the commercial means that people must necessary talk about the product. The honda element commercial? The Salmon commercial (with the bear that does kung foo... don't remember the name). The Cat Hearders commercial. Pepsi through the Generations Commercial. If people remember and can discuss your ads years later you've had a lasting impact on them.
So the Nissan 350Z managed to hit the Social Impact meter pretty hard. How many hundreds of thousands who've never seen that add just read your comment? I for one didn't even realize that Nissan made a high end sports car, now I know not only that they do, I know the name of it, and I know there's probably video of it out on the net of it zipping about Prague. Now I haven't a red cent to buy the blasted thing with, but now its in my head, and that's the point of advertising.
Killfile(TGK)
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