• Advertising Age, Wednesday, June 17, 2009 9:30 AM

Movie-themed cable network AMC last year started testing a research tool called AIM, which paired advertisers with psycho-graphically targeted film packages. The goal was to show how targeted research could help advertisers stray from obvious or stereotypical movie match-ups.

Now the network is getting beyond the testing phase, with advertiser Shell-Pennzoil onboard. The network has presented Shell-Pennzoil with a diverse slate of contextually relevant action, sports and drama movies to run its ads. The recommended movies didn't skew toward any one genre.

AMC hopes AIM will help it carve out a niche in the competitive cable environment for acquired movies. "We've shown we can be as targeted as any network," says AMC President Charlie Collier. "Advertisers can look at AMC not as a broad-based network but as a series of specific targeting opportunities." Turner's TNT and TBS have also been offering contextual-advertising, via TVinContext, since last year's upfront. They are expanded their offerings to 100 movies and original series this year.

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