• by Ken Liebeskind , June 13, 2002

For advertisers, the ultimate promise of digital cable TV is the ability to reach viewers on a one-to-one basis with targeted ads. Each set-top box has a personal ID number that is linked to the cable company’s records, which provide the name and address of customers. Gain permission to merge that with third-party data and you suddenly know more about the customers, so you can target ads to them.

A few companies, including Adlink and ACTV, provide targeting services now, although Adlink only works the Los Angeles market. The newest player in the game is Visible World (www.visibleworld.com), a year-old New York firm that will create unlimited versions of ads and package them for delivery by cable MSOs (multiple-systems operators). The company plans to start trials within a few months, but wouldn’t name the advertisers or MSOs it is working with.

While TV ads are the company’s flagship product, it is also working on an Internet component that will play the same spots online and target them the same way.

The company demonstrated its technology by showing sample ads for the Bermuda tourism board. An endless variety of ads was possible, directed to viewer interests such as golf and scuba diving, credit card preference such as Visa or MasterCard, and even language preference, such as English or Spanish. The spots shared some audio and video content with elements that were unique to each spot.

These so-called IntelliSpots were created with storyboarding and data design tools that allow advertisers to create individual spots based on the data they employ. Agencies will use these Visible World tools to create the ads, which will be processed with a post-production tool before being sent to the MSO for broadcast. Visible World will partner with cable MSOs to run the ads. It is negotiating with three of the top MSOs now, according to company president Seth Haberman.

Haberman claims digital cable will revolutionize television advertising by allowing one-to-one TV marketing for the first time. Broadcast TV of course plays the same spots to a mass audience but digital “allows different things to go to different boxes,” he says.

Digital cable will allow TV to mimic the personalization that is available online, where web pages can be targeted to individuals, Haberman says. “Content has never been personalized on TV before.”

A benefit to media buyers is that they can buy a variety of segments without making a lot of niche buys. “It should make the buying process simpler with fewer buys; it’s buyer friendly,” Haberman says.

Visible World’s offering demonstrates the trend in one-to-one advertising made possible by digital cable. “Cable is in the best position of all electronic media for two-way communication because of the broadband pipe that brings cable into the home,” says Joe Ostrow, president of the Cable Advertising Bureau.

He says there are two factors to consider in determining whether this kind of advertising will succeed: the degree to which the advertiser is interested in communicating in this fashion, and the technology that is available to empower it. Visible World has the technology. “It looks very promising down the road,” Ostrow says.