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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?"
This is not a new TiVo feature, it's an underused one at this point. There are a few car company ads that are presently use it.
The way it works is that the sponsors purchase a TiVo Showcase package, which is an advertising section that has always been part of TiVo. The Showcases can be filled with video content that is spliced out of the "Teleworld Infomercial"... a quasi-weekly program that TiVo purchases during the early morning hours on the Discovery Channel that all TiVos are programmed to return.
The sponsors then purchase a typical campaign's worth standard 30-second TV spots, and they encode in the VBI (the same place where Closed Captioning hides) a signals that all TiVos understand. This signal tells the TiVo that whenever this spot is encountered, to display a "Press Thumbs Up For More Information" icon while it is playing. If the user gives the confirming thumbs up signal on their remote, they're transported directly to the Showcase section for that sponsor. Whenever the user chooses to leave the Showcase, they'll be returned to exactly where they were in whatever program they were viewing.
You might be surprised to know that TiVo is recording this Teleworld Infomercial program, because it's never directly displayed in the user interface. You also might think that TiVo is kidnapping some of your diskspace... but in fact they're saving the ad content to the "reserved section" of TiVo's funky Linux-based OS. You never had access to that disk volume, and they already subtracted this space from the advertised hour-wise capacity of a unit. If you upgrade your TiVo's HD size, all of the additional space created goes to user recordings, the reserved space stays the same size.
Gotta give TiVo credit, they're finding a revenue model that actually issues a challenge to advertisers... come up with some ad content that makes people want to watch it.
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
Why would you link from commercials that nobody watches if they have a TiVo anyways?
Now if only Tivo got some google sense and tied their ads into keywords (which could be easily fetched on most channels supporting captions).
Googled has proven that targeted ads work, why not try it in Tivo.
Is anyone else reminded of the blipverts from the Max Headroom series?"
No, because this is the inverse of a blipvert. A blipvert was a split-second commerical inserted into Network XXIII programs, which had the unfortunate side effect of causing overweight viewers to explode.
This feature actually requires user input (a confirming click of the green Thumbs Up key during the conventional 30-second ad) in order to jump to a 3-minute presentation that has been stored on the TiVo harddrive. The user can bail out of the 3-minute presentation at any time and return to their "live" stream whenever they want. TiVo will do the favor of pausing the program at exactly the point they left it, where the user can fast-forward to catch up as much as they want.
First my Tivo thinks I'm gay because of that one Queer Eye episode I watched, now this!
It's only a matter of time before these ads start becoming more tailored to the individual and they do things to get your personal information like buying from data brokers and taking your registration information from nytimes.com!!!
Keep the faith, share the code
an off switch on a TV was illegal.
They already did this, I believe, at least once last year. When a certain car commercial came on (can't remember which one.. maybe M.B. or V.W.) it went to an extended commercial if you wanted by hitting the thumbs up button. Not much to talk about really... the tivo is set up to save messages and commercials from the air at 3:00am on scheduled days.
There are other types of commercials too... for instance right now there are a couple of previews for Dawn of the Dead. They are just extending this out to more non-entertainment products too. You don't have to watch them if you don't want to.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
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 have a feeling this will be a popular feature with the "Girls Gone Wild" commercials.
Imagine this:
Instead of 30 second commercials you fast forward through, all the commercials were on your Tivo as well. and tivo only recorded commercials for products that you liked (tivo commercial suggestions). That way, you don't HAVE to watch a commercial to watch a show... but Tivo makes money (and stays in business) so that I can continue to get their service while not getting commericals.... I like this a LOT
And if Tivo can make a little money from the Ad firms without impacting my viewing habits , then so be it.
The only problem I might have with it is if my Tivo had the wrong idea of what I liked and didn't like. What a horrible time I might have if my Tivo recorded only ads for feminine hygiene products....
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.
'Blipverts may come / And blipverts may go / But the laziness upon which they breed is with us always.'
Actually, that's quite good; perhaps it was me who said it."
--Max Headroom, Newsweek , 20 April 1987
Though a lot of people like to complain about the "yellow star" ads, I have found several of them quite useful. Even the direct promotions. A good example: There is a TiVo PVR that will burn directly to DVD. For a couple of weeks they had a yellow star ad that included 4 minute and 1 minute walkthroughs about the features and benefits of the unit. Pretty standard. But there was a third link which requested product literature. I liked the product, so I requested the lit. Got it a week later, read through it, and made a purchase decision.
It's horribly efficient. No "type in this 30-character URL", no "type in all your mailing info here", just push select and voila. This isn't the first time I've done it... TiVo offered a promotional DVD to give to your friends to tell them about TiVo. They made it available online, and via yellow star. Clicked, got the DVD. No hassles. No typing. Easy. And even after opting in (you can opt in, neutral, or out) to data collection in my personal preferences, I receive no junk mail or spam whatsoever from these companies. I get what I ask for, and nothing else.
This could be a phenomenal money maker for TiVo if done right. If I'm interested in your product, and you make information gathering as easy as pushing the "Thumbs Up" while watching the commercial (ala TiVoMatic icon), I guarantee I watch your 3- or 4-minute promotional video. Everyone wins. It helps the sponsor promote their product, and it does so without pissing off the end-user, because they request the video, they're not force fed. Now it becomes a convenience instead of an annoyance.
I hope the rest of the marketing world takes a good hard look at this business model... make your information easily accessible, don't beat your target audience over the head with it.
because... (drumroll)... there were no commercials.
A technology attempting to defeat commercials wants to have commercials. How unpredictable.
Helen: "I'm so apalled, have you seen the latest Alexortus advertisement?"
Nancy: "Yes, simply shocking, watch this part, wait I'll slow-mo it, you can see yis penis!"
And they'll replay it til its worn out...and I'll leave it to the readers imagination what transpired in the meantime.
-cp-
President Bush to Liberate Alaska
I gave TiVo a suggestion when I first got my TiVo and heard all of the "TiVo will die" comments everywhere. My suggestion was that TiVo should allow the thumbing of commercials. Then they could sell that information to advertisers so they'd know what commercials that people thought were good.
This would allow me to let Quizno's know that I can't stand there singing hair balls.
More like the 50s style news pieces / commercials spliced into Starship Troopers (the movie not the book which are two completely different stories):
"Would you like to learn more?"
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
But all this data has to come from the broadcasters. Too much extra work? Perhaps the Ad Slots are not filled until the last minute, so this might not be practical...
Maybe there should be an All Commercial Channel with indexed searchable commercials. I'd watch it!
Well, no actually, "I'd TIVO it".
I like microcars
No, but I am reminded of the "Want more?" hyperlink which appeared on the futuristic televisions in Starship Troopers.
Damn... Now I am also reminded of Denise Richards in Spandex.
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
One of the best ones I saw was for the Nissan 350Z. In the Showcase it said to press 'select' and they'd mail me a DVD of the Z racing around Prague. Sure enough, a bit later a DVD showed up at my door after simply pressing a button on my remote.
Now that's a powerful car commercial.
tbdean
as a tpical how-did-I-live-without-it tivo owner, I alternate between 30-seconding over commercials and FFing through them. I often catch a glimpse of a cute one that I will go back and look at. some are great, "honey come here!"-quality ads. I've actaully got a tape that I put the best ones onto, like the one where the kid smashes a jelly doughnut and launches the jelly into his brother's mouth (more or less.) and I've watched a few of the showcase ones, too. entertaining ads can be as good as anything else.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
This is the kind of advertising i'll always watch.
Now if I can only convince them to do Victoria Secret TV spots i'll love it even more!
This is the most gratuitous example of "Preaching to the Choir" that I've ever seen.
But, you're right. Preach on, mah brotha!
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
However, it will have to pass through the 7 Layer Burrito Of Management for approval first.
:)
I like the "spongmonkeys" in the Quiznos ads. They're a great way to get everyone in the office really irritated with you.
Some commercials are just lame. I can't stand the flood of drug commercials (Valtrex/etc) and I am so sick of car commercials that I want to scream. Letting Tivo know "Hey, this ad sucks!" or "Hey, this rocks!" is a fairly useful function.
Then again, I don't know why they haven't added some other functionality - like setting up "accounts" so parents can force limits on sneaky kids that try to sneak in as much TV as they want.
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!"
Allows you to skip stories with stupid comments. Available this summer.
Read a book. People who talk about what's on TV are usually superficial fuckwits anyways.
FIGURE IT OUT!!1!!one!
Hammer of Truth
Slashdotters tend to be more intelligent, and so dislike commercials more. But not everyone is this intelligent.
-I am an elective eunuch.
> Is anyone else reminded of the blipverts from the Max Headroom series?
no, but it seems to me that Max Headroom was interesting because it was simply something different to look at. unfortunately, at this point in the flow of time, old school TV commercials aren't so interesting anymore.
what Tivo needs to do is promote some sort of development of interactive software that the viewer will *want* to mess around with. that way, Tivo could keep the viewer engaged while waiting for something less interactive to come along, like the next feed of some pr0n.
of course, I'm talking about a game that's fun to play and has Pepsi splattered all over it. Pepsi gets advertized, producers of old school commercials move to a new industry, Tivo gets its viable business model of commercials on demand, and geeks get paid.
what am I missing?
The way things are going it will be more like Starship Troopers...
["]Join your local Neighbor Watch program!
Want to learn more?["]
TheOnePath (757382), I am sure there's something you hold dear to your heart.
Perhaps it's Jesus Christ, maybe it's The Hobbit, perhaps it's a particular tentacle-rape hentai scene. But whatever it is, you value it, you treasure it, it hold a deep and abiding meaning for you.
I have been a fan of Robert Heinlein all my life.
Robert Heinlein wrote the novel Starship Troopers, and while interpretation of the novel remains controversial -- in particular, the continuing debate over the form of government featured in the novel, its moral-philosophic underpinnings, and what, if anything, it reveals about Robert Heinlein -- the novel, as written broaches these questions honestly and discusses them fairly and with some thoroughness for what is, after all, a novel.
While the society in the novel grants the franchise -- that is, voting rights-- only to those who have completed a term of civil or military service, and while it features rather harsh corporal punishment for crimes, at no point does Heinlein claim it to feature Big Brother-style surveillance or and mandatory militarism beyond high-school classes in "Moral Philosophy". Indeed, at the outset of the novel, Heinlein makes it clear that the main character's family has for several generations done quite well by itself without any of its members joining the military or voting.
The film Starship Troopers, on the other hand, rips off some superficial aspects of the novel, ignores Heinlein's honest philosophical questions about freedom and responsibility in a civil society, and recasts the characters and the society depicted -- and by extension, Mr. Heinlein -- as purely Fascistic, warmed-over cardboard-cutout sadistic Nazis.
To put it more succinctly: the film is an abominable piece of shit which is wholly unlike the novel and which besmirches the reputation of the novel's author.
The film is neither faithful to the original novel, nor in any way fair to Robert Heinlein or his beliefs.
Please keep in mind, the next time that you want to refer to Paul Verhoeven's bastardized abortion of a film version of Starship Troopers as the real article, that to real fans of Robert Heinlein that is as offensive as would be as would be an "adaptation" of Jesus's life in which Jesus crucifies small animals while shooting heroin and bullying children, or an "adaptation" of The Hobbit in which Gandalf buggers Bilbo and the dwarves join in on it to make it a gang-rape.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
The theory of natural selection provides us a model for where this harebrained advertising revenue scheme will lead us, and the destination is not a pleasant one at all.
First, it is clear that only certain types of products will compel people to click their remote control buttons to peruse their related advertisements.
What types of products? Well first off, flashy toys like cars, boats, tech gadgets and videogames. "Blockbuster" type movies and popular music are also included in this category. Other kinds of products that do not titillate the imagination will be ignored. No one is going to sit through a three minute interactive commercial for cooking oil or window cleaner.
It follows then, that as some products reap ad revenue and others fall by the wayside, tv networks will compete to show the most compelling advertising material imaginable. Whatever grabs the viewers attention the fastest and firmest will dominate. Therefore I do not think it outlandish to conclude we will begin seeing advertisements for pornography on network television in our lifetimes.
Eventually formerly family entertainment media will morph into an intellectual and spiritual wasteland pushing immediate gratification, cheap thrills on an unsuspecting public. And where will that leave society? Auto accidents will increase as people speed along in their flashy cars while toying with the latest electronic device, their imaginations awash with pornographic images. Sexual mores will be loosened by the flood of titillating images on our television sets. Can a new AIDS epidemic be far behind? I would not be surprised.
The demographic of slashdot isn't what it used to be, in case you haven't noticed. Desperate times call for desperate replies. Every day there's at least one spam story...
Good.
Heh. Hypertext captioned anyone?
I don't really want my Tivo to incorporate Flash, Java, .Net, or some other idiotic interative presentation language.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
As someone else noted, they are indeed Rather Good...
Too bad the very best work of Rather Good, the punk kittens doing "Fell in love with a girl" is offline.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
From the article summary:
Is anyone else reminded of the blipverts from the Max Headroom series?"
No, but you just proved you're an idiot. You see a banner ad on a webpage, and you know that if you click it you'll read more information about the product, right? That's apparently what this thing is.
Blipverts, in Max Headroom, were taking a commercial that normally lasts 30 seconds and compressing it down to say 1 second or so. Then a person watches it, gets so much mental stimulation that generates electrical pulses in the body and causes them to explode.
Not the same thing at all. So you can take off your computer-simulated tin-foil hat, this time.
Like what I said? You might like my music
...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
Holy hell...slow down there. While the movie may be an abomination of the book, there's no reason to go off the hook. I doubt if the author of the post you responded to even knew this fact...I know I didn't. Did you see the movie The Hulk? It's nothing compared to the comic books, but I don't go off the hook when people make a reference of the movie. IMHO I enjoyed Starship Troopers!
I trip I rip and thought I think I'm slick, I'm nothing but a funky country hick -- Kid Rock
I'm pretty sure I'm seeing the last days of television (as I knew it and literally) when I see this stuff, because all it does it annoy the hell out of me.
I would so much rather have product placement (like a Ford car chase in a recent Alias), than the crappy 'splash screens' that are pushing shows that I will never watch. Ever.
BTW, Ford seems to be everywhere these days. Tivo had a clip on the GT 40, couple of minutes and kinda cool. On American Idol (don't get me started, I'm a musician and married - guess what won?), there was a 'video' that was the most blatant product placement I've ever seen. It was a 2 plus minute Ford commercial that made me not want a Ford and hate all on the screen, because it was so obvious 'THIS IS WHAT WE ARE SELLING'.
I can appreciate advertising. I deal with marketing my company -- I know that eyeballs count. But, (and I don't need a 4 year worthless degree to know this) the first rule is 'Do no harm.' Just like a doctor, but for your product's image.
Give me something new, and something that doesn't insult my intelligence (or lack thereof), don't play it into the ground (do you want to hear Freebird, Stairway or American Pie again?) and I may consider your product. At least I won't add it to the brain 'Hate File' and refuse to buy it for my irrational dislike of your marketing. People are irrational (that's also the first rule. See?)
And seriously, the all-obscuring splash screens will insure that I will: Be pissed off at whatever you're pushing, Be pissed off at your station/channel/advertiser, and look for my show(s) on the web (bye ad dollars), DVD (see you sponsors) or give it up for good (Oh NO!).
Sleep on it. And Ford? Way to get me to complement and complain about you on Slashdot. Well played, sir. I'm still not buying an Escort.
The film Starship Troopers, on the other hand, rips off some superficial aspects of the novel, ignores Heinlein's honest philosophical questions about freedom and responsibility in a civil society, and recasts the characters and the society depicted -- and by extension, Mr. Heinlein -- as purely Fascistic, warmed-over cardboard-cutout sadistic Nazis.
Eh? How's that? I recall the film being an excellent rendition of Heinlein's society in Starship Troopers. My only real caveat is that they took out the powered suits. That really bit, in a big way.
Heinlein tends to trample on several things in many of his books.
First, he tramples all over controlling governments. That is, governments that try to control their citizens. One way he tends to do it is by presenting governments as always seeking to control citizens and putting his characters at odds with said governments. This is exemplified in the relationship between "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls".
Second, he likes to reveal the common man for the idiot he is. 'nuff said, I think.
Third, he likes to stomp on the military, while simultaneously respecting and admiring it. I think he had penis-envy since he became disabled and missed all the really good wars in the last century. So he has a tendency of portraying the military as fascist, and defending it for being so.
In Starship Troopers, both the novel and the movie, we are presented with a society that has been taken over by the war veterans. The only difference here is that in the book we're given a brief history of the fact, which is left out of the movie (probably would have added bloat to the movie). Never in the whole movie is the society given as a big-brother fascist sort of society. Quite the contrary, the kid's fight with his parents was all about freedom of choice, and the society gave the kid the choice.
Please keep in mind, the next time that you want to refer to Paul Verhoeven's bastardized abortion of a film version of Starship Troopers as the real article, that to real fans of Robert Heinlein that is as offensive as would be as would be an "adaptation" of Jesus's life in which Jesus crucifies small animals while shooting heroin and bullying children, or an "adaptation" of The Hobbit in which Gandalf buggers Bilbo and the dwarves join in on it to make it a gang-rape.
Hey dude, if you're scared, stay home. Just why the fuck should we walk on eggshells because you didn't like someone's movie? Quit whining and fuck off.
Like what I said? You might like my music
For example, if an enhanced ad for Carnival Cruise Lines is aired during a program, viewers would see an icon promoting it. They could then click on the icon to watch a 3-minute video clip while their show continued recording in the background.
Obviously, the ad would have to be recorded before the actual show airs for this to work. So say this ad is for Alias, a show where people are constantly trying to guess what happens next. I can see lots of people spinning up theories based on what ads they notice are recorded on their TiVo boxes. Now, I'm not the type who minds spoilers, but for some people this could be a bad thing.
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.
Product placement will be the only last resort, when (not if) Tivo and similar products reach critical mass; when commercials are mostly skippable; and when the damnable "bugs" and other annoyances in lower corners of shows finally exhaust their usefulness.
TV will come full-circle. We'll be back to the grand old days of radio and early TV, where the show practically came to a stop so that a character or announcer could break a 4th wall and tell you about a product. (E.g. the moment in The Truman Show when Truman's wife does an ad in the middle of a heated argument.)
Additionally, the product placement that's been there for years and years will just be more obvious. Thoroughly random, bad examples: cars in James Bond movies; all the judges of American Idol obviously drinking Coke; shades and black trenchcoats from The Matrix.
I'm tellin' ya: product placement will be the only thing left. The only way to avoid the ad will be to avoid the show or event altogether, as there will be nothing to skip or ignore.
And that's the scariest thing of all, since advertisers are at their most evil when they're slow, subtle, pervasive and acting over a long period of time. Think cigarettes. Everyone and their cousin smoked in TV and movies for 2 generations. Was never commented on, was never a statement about the character or a way to define them; it was just normal. The following 3 generations were cancer-ridden smokers. (Not a direct cause-and-effect, don't get your knickers in a knot. But it certainly contributed.)
So for all that commercials are a pain in the ass, which would you rather have? The inconvenience of hitting the "skip" button on your Tivo/Replay 6 or 7 times, and the annoying bugs? Or an already morally sketchy group of folks - advertisers - whose specialties are being clever and evil, suddenly being forced to be more clever?
"Is anyone else reminded of the blipverts from the Max Headroom series?"
Considering bliperts were clandestine advertising schemes that inadvertantly resulted in sponaneous combustion of brain matter, no.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Is this not like the "red button" programmes and adverts on Sky Digital?
A red circle appears at the top of the screen and if you want to know more, hit red and it takes you into a whole "interactive" section?
But I hate interstitials (the ones that interrupt shows)...
TIVO already sells a commercial space, and I reguarly watch them. They tend to have high production value and are usually entertaining. And I can CHOOSE to watch them or not... And most importantly WHEN I feel like watching them.
I like commercials in my newspaper and magazines. I am introduced to all sorts of stuff that I ultimately purchase that way.
I hate them during TV shows, but the TIVO method is better. I am INTERESTED in the commercial. I am paying attention to the message. And I have been sold by some (especially for movies, trailers and some supporting marketing stuff). This is very good for the marketers.
But, that said, there is still a problem. Commercials pay for most of the TV I watch (I watch alot of NICHE channels TLC Discovery, Travel, Food,SciFi, etc), and I have watched damned few commercials in the last 3 years. If everyone went to TIVO, I am not sure I would like TV as much, or that there would be the things that I like on TV, or it would be MUCH more expensive than it is currently.
I don't think this is the answer, as I am not sure how the shows benefit from TIVO based commercial sales. And TIVO is really only valuable to me, if there is TV I want to watch. So, 5 percent of you, buy a TIVO, for the other other 95 percent, TIVO sucks, just watch regular TV...
That should work out best for me...
Not to piss on your parade but working in advertising I can tell you two things. First of all people can already track the response to an ad by increased sales. Popular ads create a buzz of their own on the streets and online. With the increasing number of internet users its much easier to have your "ear to the ground". I don't think advertisers would pay for this information unless they also got detailed demographics as well. Maybe that's what you were thinking about anyway but I'm sure there would be a stink about privacy concerns. Also consider that you don't have to LIKE an ad for it to be effective. It can be loud, unoriginal, but stick in your head. When they shout "buy one get one free", and sales increase 400%, companies view this as a success despite how ugly and horrible the ads are.
(Now the completely unrelated part) We should probably flog the people buying infomercial crap -- they are promoting tasteless design ethics. I went from broadcast to cable and switched to DirecTivo last year. I have a great home theater setup, but I stopped watching DTV too. Instead I rent Netflix. DirecTivo can give you a lot of quality programming but in the end the time is better spent on other things (girls, drinking, etc.). Eight hours of "must see tv" is too much even for me.
Is anyone else reminded of the blipverts from the Max Headroom series?"
No, but I am reminded of the main actor from that series.W-w-w-w-w-what was his n-n-n-n-name again and did he ever do anything useful/rememberable after that besides 6six?
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.
"But that's the problem with this country, one of the many, but this whole issue of sexuality and pornography, which I don't understand what pornography is, I really don't. To me, pornography is, you know, spending all your money and not educating the people in America, and spending it instead on weapons, that's pornographic to me, that's totally filthy, and etc., etc., down the line, you all in your fucking hearts know the goddamned arguments, okay, great. But no one knows what pornography is. Supreme Court says pornography is anything without artistic merit that causes sexual thought, that's their definition, essentially. No artistic merit, causes sexual thought. Hmm. Sounds like... every commercial on television, doesn't it? You know, when I see those two twins on that Doublemint commercial-I'm not thinking of gum. I am thinking of chewing, maybe that's the connection they're trying to make. What? You've all seen that Busch beer commercial, where the girl in the short hot-pants opens the beer bottle on her belt buckle, leaves it there, and it foams over her hand and over the bottle and the voice over goes, "Get yourself a BUSCH." Hmm. You know what that looks like, nah, no way. I'll tell you the commercial they'd like to do, if they could, and I guarantee you, if they could, they'd do this, right here. Here's the woman's face, beautiful. Camera pulls back, naked breast. Camera pulls back, she's totally naked. Legs apart. Two fingers, right here, and it just says, "Drink Coke." Now I don't know the connection here, but goddamn if Coke isn't on my shopping list that week. "Dr. Pepper." "Snickers, satisfying." (Mouth-guitars "I Can't Get No Satisfaction") Damned if I'm not buying these products! My teeth are rotting out of my head, I'm glued to the television, I'm as big as a fucking couch. "More Snickers, more Coke!" - Bill Hicks
;-)
cLive
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
and no Cue:Cat jokes yet?
The secret to good ads? Make them entertaining. I'd always fast forward through ads, but some were entertaining enough that I'd watch them anyways.
I don't mind being sold to, I just mind being bored.
Advertising on demand!? Hmm....
I DEMAND that you show me advertising right now! I can't get enough of advertising, nossir! MORE MORE MORE advertising, NOW!
What's wrong with this picture?
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Would YOU like to know more?
Users Plan to Not Watch Them
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.
Why not link the Tivo to an online game console and have it download game demos when a game commerical is on TV? It could even have an online store in the demo.
SproutWorks Software Design
Is there any demand for commercials (from the side of the audience)? I doubt...
Imagine the alternative uses for this - a clever program hacker could arrange for truly interesting information about products to be shown as well - like mini documentaries on the human rights abuses or environmental impacts of the product. I would even be interested in paying to have alternate-info-verts available on demand.
A new tool for raising social consciousness and fermenting activism?
This could actually be useful if you could pull up commercial messages that you actually found useful. Like, if you enjoy a funny commercial, you could watch it again and again. Or more practically, if you preferred commercials that were strictly informative and objective and honest, you could call those up (all zero of them) and get good, reliable information on products you were considering purchasing.
People already do this, in fact, when they use the internet to research a purchase they are considering. If TiVo could somehow convince corporations to package the information in television friendly formats and provide the information to consumers on their demand, it might actually make sense for all parties and provide a useful service, rather than the intrusion and annoyance that typical commercials have turned into.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Junk mailers, spammers, purveyors of popup ads, and advertisers in general are always asserting that many people enjoy their ads.
The whole business model for Internet banner ads, popups, etc. is based on the assumption that you will welcome ads for product categories of interest to you. So was the Prodigy online service (in the days before it became an ordinary ISP).
The failure of this business model should be proof, if proof were needed, that most people, most of the time, detest being interrupted or distracted by advertising. With very, very, very few exceptions, nobody likes ads that are pushed at them.
Most advertisers probably hate to acknowledge this, even to themselves, so Tivo's pitch may be briefly effective ("of course people will want to watch your ads, they're not like all the others..."), but eventually advertisers will notice that very, very few viewers are accepting their pushy little invitations.
The real brilliance of Google is that they discovered the only way in which ads really are acceptable: when they are the result of a user-initiated search for a specific product (note: a "pull" model rather than a "push" model).
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
would be to allow people to decide how much ads they want to see. The less ads you want, the more you pay.
Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.
Implementing more industry friendly features like stopping commercial skipping and inserting these on-demand commercials may help them form some more strategic partnerships with business -- important, given the likely replacement of DirecTiVo with a cheaper vendor's tech. But it won't do anything to improve the user experience -- which at this point, is basically all that TiVo's got going for it.
I can see TiVO selling space on their startup screen (I don't have/want one so I'm not sure how it works.), and the menus. If you select the commercial channel, you'll get a Bloomberg type of display with a commercial spots that you can skip through (car ads, drug ads, movie trailers) while news headline and stock ticker crawls go across the bottom, and your localized weather/information takes up a sidebar. All of this interactive and controllable.
I don't watch commercial TV (except for hockey games), and I don't watch the news. What information I want I pull off the web. If I could pull this info with this device using PiP while watching something else, I'd be sold on it. Plus it would have to integrate with a DTS sound system, and of course, record HDTV content from satellite.
From what I do know about PVRs so far, I know not all of that is possible yet.
So is TiVo just going to start downloading these extended commercials to people's units? What will determine who gets top billing for their product? How much space do they plan on taking up. Will these commercials also be in HDTV when the time comes? I don't want 20 gigs of storage taken up for a tampon commercial. :)
I prefer a void in conversation to a vacuous one.
Sounds like a great service for Mr. Orlando Soto, no?
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
Grab your tivo remote: press Select, Play, Select, 3, 0, select. The button that moves the marker forward 15 minutes is now a 30 second skip button.
Wow, it's not enough that you have to pay for the unit itself on top of a subscription fee, is it?
Yet another reason to build your own PVR. It's nice to know that they can sell their product to millions of people, then at a whim decide, "Hey, let's make even more by selling AD space!" Greedy pricks.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I remember hearing a report in the '80's that in Russia, Commercials ran for about 7 - 10 minutes at the top of the hour and people tuned in to watch them.
I really wish we could subscribe to the topics of advertisements we want. I don't have erectile disfunction and need to "stay in the game" and I'm not looking food with "no rules" unless that means I don't have to pay.
One day... one day...
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
I dunno about any of it. Popups, interstitials, placements, etc... they all drive me nuts. The only thing that would make me happy is ads you choose to watch, and I would simply choose not to watch any of them. That alias episode you reference in particular, and an earlier one with an obnoxious logo zoom-in on a Ford Focus really grated on me.
Honestly... who would yell something like "Take the F-150!!!" in a frantic chase? Maybe "Get in the truck." But in that particular example, how about "Get in the car in FRONT of the truck, so we don't have to push a parked car out of the way with the truck." Not to mention it made the Mustang look pretty lousy that a huge pickup truck could accelerate and corner as well as it did.
I want to pay for my shows directly. I don't need 100 channels, ads, or anything but the few programs I like.
The only problem I might have with it is if my Tivo had the wrong idea of what I liked and didn't like. What a horrible time I might have if my Tivo recorded only ads for feminine hygiene products....
:)
If this behavior was caused by some type of internet worm or a virus, would that be considered a "yeast infection" instead??
(I'm sorry. I couldn't resist
Indeed -- One of the reasons I don't use the skip-30-seconds button, and have suggested a fast-forward-at-60x-to-next-all-black-frame feature is to allow me to watch for "interesting" commercials.
I will, for example, invariably stop and go back to a Jack In The Box ad -- the worst of them deserves a funny=7 rating and the best are full-on funny=10.
--Laird
"...and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys."
Tivo: bringing a new product to market and ruining an industry --no matter how revolutionary the tech-- not a good idea. VCR is ok, because you're actually watching the commertials the first time you record something. At the very least the commertials are still there, even if you fast forward. Because Tivo practically eliminates commertials with its skip and delay, advertisers are nervous. The irony is that consumers don't care. There have not been droves of people throwing money at Tivo for their set top boxes. Tivo now wishes they would have made friends with the advertising companies b4 they made enemies of them. Tivo could have have headed this off years ago by having premium adds at a minimum. In a word, thoughtless.
infinite spam channel, 24 hours, channel 37
... oh, boy, I can't wait to get one of those....
budweiser, "rolfing," 0930 - 1145, channel 40 (r)
kerry for president ads, 24 hours, channel 87
bush for president ads, 24 hours, channel 83
TiVO features channel, 24 hours, channel 66
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The current TiVo setup has the one ad-spot at the bottom of the "home" page on the TiVo box that rotates between the various ad-spots in the showcase area. This is not what the article is talking about. The new feature will create a "link" to an ad from a commercial of a recorded program. This is the difference that TiVo hopes will make their ad spots more appealing to advertisers. Previously the only "link" that could be attached to a commercial was the "press thumbs up to record" feature that could be used to help promote upcoming shows.
So, this is something new. See the article for details. Note that the part of the article that describes the Porsche commercial is talking about the existing technology. The later section discussing a Carnival Cruise ad is the new stuff.
..wayne..
I'm not talking about the yellow star. The so called Video-to-video feature already exists and has been used before. The only thing that's new is TiVo's push to sell more such ads...
I noticed last night that my TV recognizes some commericals as ads for other shows and tells you to press the thumbs up button to record the show in the ad.
Now that's pretty slick.
--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."
TiVo actually has research to prove that people will actually rewatch a Pepsi comercial if Britney Spears is performing a dance routine while singing the soda company's jingle.
... maybe I will buy a Pepsi.
Sure, I'll rewatch her dance. But I probably won't buy Pepsi.
On the other hand, if I have to buy the Pepsi first, and then I get to rewatch her dance
Okay, I'll be honest: I'll only buy the Pepsi if I then get to refuck her.
But the basic principle remains: reward me, O Corporations, for buying your products.
-kgj
-kgj