• by Robert Rosenthal , February 4, 2008

Television viewers are using their remote control just as they would a mouse: to request information, ask for free samples, or even to buy products. The marriage of technology and marketing is available in over 65 million homes, but in their rush to discover the next big thing and jump on the latest bandwagon, all but the most progressive marketers (albeit a growing list) are completely unaware of interactive TV's power as a super-charged marketing communications tool.

Coming from over 20 years of conventional advertising experience, I'm now witnessing the vast difference in consumer reaction when viewers are offered delightful commercial experiences rather than being force-fed with typical selling drivel. Well beyond 30 seconds, people are voluntarily spending minutes with interactive TV experiences, right from the comfort of their own living room couch, on their very own TV screen. And the results have been rewardingly eye-opening for the out-in-front marketers who'd rather write the rules than soon live with someone else's.

The essence of iTV marketing revolves around creating "living room" experiences that leverage technology to create a two-way TV dialogue with target consumers. However, to do that effectively requires an approach that fundamentally transforms the conventional model of advertising tell and sell. Hint: it starts with them (aka the consumer).

When advertisers and viewers are no longer playing an intrusive game of cat and mouse, but are instead enjoying a mutually respectful two-way exchange, one discovers that voluntary opt-in rates substantially exceed the Web; viewer engagement is sustained for minutes rather than seconds, and CPMs are considerably lower than for rich media. It's no surprise that marketing mavericks like Unilever call it "TV on steroids."

Beyond merging the immediacy and interactivity of the Internet with the emotional power of television, iTV ad experiences yield the detailed measurement data that makes possible what marketers have been clamoring for since the beginning of time: a truly measurable return on their advertising investment in TV. Otherwise known as "accountability."

Whether your favorite TV program is "American Idol," "Curb your Enthusiasm" or the Super Bowl, ask yourself if you'd rather watch it on your mobile phone, your computer monitor or in your living room on a 40-inch plasma screen. No matter how much we hear about mobile marketing and the rage over video on the Internet, both perfectly viable and increasingly important marketing vehicles, most people still prefer to watch TV on TV.

They're just not watching commercials. The brutal truth, contrary to what many in the ad industry would still like to believe, is that consumers really don't like ads. If they did, they wouldn't be actively avoiding them at every opportunity they can while advertisers go on finding new ways to invade their space from airplane barf bags to urinal splashguards, or even MySpace. You've really got to hand it to the network sales guys -- or chalk it up to apathetic inertia -- when you consider that given the choice, the vast majority of viewers skip ads -- yet $9 billion is still poured into conventional upfront TV buys.

As the Internet becomes available on TV, and content is becoming more interactive, only truly forward-thinking communicators are applying effective TV marketing techniques to their outreach. Indeed, many of the biggest and most sophisticated marketers still have very little accurate idea about the interactive TV space. More surprising, particularly in view of all the chatter about the need for innovation and new models, are those with the eager resistance to exploring its potential in spite of the fact that it may save their job. Considering all that's written about the state of advertising today (broken), agency approval ratings (lower than Bush's), and the average tenure of a CMO (13 months at last count), one might expect most creative, modern-day marketers to be proactively on the lookout for anything that could drive quantifiable return on their marketing investment.

It's self-evident that consumers are quickly and readily gravitating to a digital lifestyle. Marketers just aren't moving at the same pace into digital advertising. Many of them either assume they know, pass it off to a media agency that claims to know, or are smugly satisfied with not knowing what they don't know. However, this kind of head-in-the-sand, turf-protecting, institutional close-mindedness actually represents a meaningful opportunity for those who deliberately choose to exploit the advantage that comes with first-mover status in the digital living room.

That has certainly been the case for AXE deodorant. Now on its sixth iTV campaign, its performance and efficiency measures have improved with each newly enhanced iteration. More than practice makes perfect, what it demonstrates is that initial "test" campaigns -- when implemented well -- are scalable, and that applying performance data generated from consumers' actual interactive behavior is absolutely essential to optimizing the consumer experience -- and ROI. Now that's what I call behavioral marketing.

So what's a marketer to do?

1. Ask better questions. What is our digital branding strategy? Do we have an active dialogue with our customers? Are we achieving above average click-through rates? How much time are our consumers spending with our brand? What have we done that truly pushes the limits of available digital technology? And what have we done to lead our brand "experience" into the digital age?

2. Lead, follow or get out of the way. At least explore and experiment, but don't do it flying blind. Too often we have seen companies delve into iTV by simply buying media schedules just as they would as if it were conventional TV. Wrong. It's not just another media buy. We've also seen numerous examples of off-the-shelf "solutions" sold by cable companies to media agencies eager for trial and error experience. Trial is admirable, error not so much. What we know from actual in-market experience is that systematic pre-planning, coupled with learned insights and customized design, is the only way to deliver planned results.

3. (Re)-consider process. Process is critical, but new models sometimes call for new process. Advertising, for example, has generally been built on a deductive model that culminates with a message and a medium as output. Is that still optimally productive in this new media environment?

4. Embrace your inner marketer. Stop deferring to everyone else. It's on you, CMO. If you're satisfied with the performance you're getting, be proud. If not, be bold.

As Yoda said: Do or do not. There is no try.