• by Ken Liebeskind , July 11, 2001

What do advertising executives think about during an economic downturn when their industry is in shambles? A new form of advertising that could brighten the future.

That's happened a few years ago with Internet advertising and it is happening today with iTV. Yesterday's Myers forum in New York, attended by 250 media and advertising professionals, centered almost exclusively on iTV, with a brief discussion of the upfront TV market by Jack Myers, CEO of Myers Reports.

Of course, there are lingering problems with iTV, including distribution in the U.S. So many of the speakers prophesied that it might still be a few years before saturation occurs, which would make iTV advertising more practical.

And yet, there are companies already involved in it. Europe leads the U.S. in iTV penetration, so yesterday's keynote speaker was Jean-Marc Racine, CEO of Canal + Technologies, the French digital broadcasting giant that has established a U.S. subsidiary, which he heads. He admitted greater distribution is necessary for iTV advertising to work, but says 20 million Americans have access to it now. He called it an opportunity, not a threat to existing advertising and showed examples of ads that appear on Canal + TV, including banner-like ads at the top of program guides that can be clicked.

TiVo has been criticized by advertising executives because TiVo users can bypass ads they don't want to watch. But Ken Ripley, TiVo's national director of advertising sales and partnerships, painted a different picture, showing how TiVo permits a new kind of advertising, which he distinguished from the "shotgun marketing" of traditional 30 second TV spots.

With TiVo, advertisers don't run scattershot 30s, but can target their ads to particular viewers and run long form ads that could last five minutes or more. Advertisers won't even use demographic information to make buys, but psychographic info based on the interests and lifestyle of the users, he says. Ads can appear at many different places in the TiVo system, including program guides, where Ripley noted that an ad for an episode of Seinfeld might not just be a textual description, but could actually show a clip from the show. The fact that users record their shows means they could record ads, too, which means they provide the opportunity for "extended product information," he says. Lexus, BMW, Miller and Coke have advertised on TiVo.

The first iTV campaign in the U.S. ran in April for Volvo's S60 sports sedan. Kirt Gunn, president of Cylo, the interactive agency that created it, said the campaign ran in association with the NCAA college basketball tournament. It was actually a multimedia campaign that used an iTV spot to drive viewers to a micro site on WebTV and AOLTV where a sweepstakes was running. The sweeps were also advertised on PDA and WAP phones. Banner ads ran on CBS Sportsline. The campaign is cited as the first cross platform effort that used iTV in addition to other elements.

The next speaker was Maggie Wilderotter, president/CEO of Wink Communications, the Alameda, CA firm that is making waves with its version of iTV, which it calls enhanced TV. Deployed in over three million homes on set top boxes through cable MSOs and DirecTV, it provides interactive enhancements for traditional TV shows and advertisements. The enhancements make ads interactive, with viewers encouraged to respond by clicking their remote controls. Different kinds of response can be generated, from requests for information, free samples and coupons to entry into contests and participation in polls. Fifty brands have already been advertised, including the Ford Explorer. A representative from J. Walter Thompson/Detroit spoke about the campaign, expressing the agency's satisfaction with the new format.