new advertising tools?

There is news that SeaChange International's "Ad Placement System" (no link on purpose) will allow cable companies to serve more relevant TV advertising based on location and time of day (for video-on-demand content.) There is a part of me that would welcome more relevant ads in general, but the privacy issues are more prominent. How much data does my cable company share with advertisers currently? How much more will they be giving away in the future?

"We are addressing this issue in on-demand television... -- allowing advertising to become customized on a household by household basis to maximize relevance and impact. We want to enable the best possible experience for both the viewer and the advertiser."

Additionally, using "zip code plus four" precision, cable operators can theoretically craft ads that cater to regions and even neighborhoods, SeaChange said. The company offered the example of serving ads for a compact car to "downtown demos," while wealthier "uptown" neighborhoods see an ad for luxury car.

Somehow, I don't think that SeaChange has the best possible experience of the viewer ahead of the advertiser.

Fighting PVRs with Online Ad Techniques [clickz.com]

Comments

[PixelMan]

Actually, targeted ad placement is nothing new.

I worked as a developer for Zenith in the 80's and their set top boxes could monitor what channel each subscriber was watching at any given moment. The cable operator could also direct different video feeds to "banks" of viewers based on location.

It sounds like Big Brother stuff and I guess could be abused but in practice only aggragate viewing data was collected and the cable operators never got good at selling targeted ads. At the time, advertisers preferred reaching 100,000 unqualified eyeballs over 1,000 "targeted" ones anyway.

[jbelkin]

Yea, at this point, there's not much to be concerned with. Right now, most local ads are the ones you see in the last or next last pod - usually car dealers and restaurants - all low budget and targeted only geographically.

Comcast is trying to build a national network now that they have 22 major metros under their belt but other than natioanl advertisers with regaional testing, againm it'll be mostly just geographic for years on end.

Even NBC which is big on selling on HH income and psychographics - that's still all broad. Because there are just too many factors. You & I might both live next door and drive a Lexus but the reality is you might love wrestling and shopping at Tiffany's while I might watch only tennis but also only shop at WalMart - that disparity of buying patterns did not exist 10+ years ago. Advertisers know this so that's why the only "data gathering" they'll really put their money on is requested info like that TiVo test ... even then, people don't really know what they want before it happens.

Ask people if they wanted a TiVo 5 years ago, they would've said they're mostly pretty happy with their VCR and VHS tapes ... then they see their neighbor and read about it ...

I think in this day and age, targeted advertising is not that much different than the data that's gathered now - other than TV ratings might be more accurate and as the networks know, sometimes the meters are too damn accurate and actually hurts their pocketbooks.

[okwudiri samuel]

Recently, I worked on Noodles media planning and buying. The uniqueness of advertising this product in our market is mainly the ability of the planner to understand the different segments of the T.M. and buying decisions and influencers.

Here, the two T.M were children(kids) and Mothers while ignoring the teens.

ad placement took cognisant of the fact that children are more incline to cartoons hence, children belt through highly-rated TV stations became the window.

On Mothers (decision-makers), we had to skew placement to sitcoms, soap,family comedies, news and other informative windows that will drive audience and family interest.

In all of these, key market/population was a major factor.

However, this excludes other product-line extensions which were targeted at specified audience.

ok

[James]

There is a collection of free online advertising tools located at http://www.managemyadvertising.com