• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, July 15, 2013

What is Collective up to? In the ad business, trade campaigns frequently appear on phone kiosks and similar spaces on the streets of New York. But TV?

With a rather narrow audience, that would seem to bring a lot of waste. So, a b-to-b spot Collective launched last week seems a curious move. After all, it’s a tech company that propels digital advertising.

Then again, maybe it’s putting its money where its mouth is, quite literally, by using its TV Accelerator product.

Launched in 2011, the TV Accelerator system is aimed at targeting viewers online, who just saw a related spot on TV. 

TV Accelerator employs set-top-box viewing data, which Collective combines with its ability to identify online audiences that likely saw a spot. If it works with precision, the online exposure can lead to Web site visits, opening all kinds of e-commerce and other opportunities.

(TV Accelerator is not to be confused with TV Amplifier. Videology, with its cross-screen ad technology, chose that brand last year when it launched a similar product.)

Collective’s technology has many functions -- for example, KFC used it to target men on mobile devices near restaurants. And the New York-based company bills itself as offering “Wherevertising” across screens. 

In that vein, its 30-second TV spot uses a “Life Is But A Screen” song -- reportedly a takeoff on the 1950s song known as "Life Could Be A Dream."

Cue the lyrics: “Life is but a screen to keep you entertained and up to speed on news, to let you share your wish for those designer shoes ... Life is a but a screen that takes you from the streets to paradise up above, connects you anywhere to anyone that you love. Life is but a screen sweetheart!”

As the song plays, text on-screen reads: “The Right Screen. With The Right Creative. At The Right Moment.”

Visuals include a couple with a bowl of popcorn apparently watching TV, a young woman with a tablet and an apparently newly married couple taking a picture of themselves with a smartphone in Venice. 

Showing it really is a b-to-b effort, there's a blue screen with “Brand Driven Adaptive Multi-Screen Advertising” overlaid -- not exactly, the type of pithy verbiage Madison Avenue strives for.

It’s unclear exactly where the spot is running, though locally in New York on Time Warner Cable is one venue. (Collective’s campaign is also using the more traditional b-to-b tactics with out-of-home inventory in the Big Apple.)

New York makes sense. So might Silicon Valley. For if Collective hopes the campaign attracts ad buyers and sellers to its technology, a side benefit might be drumming up some interest in a potential IPO.

The company is backed by venture capitalists and CEO Joe Apprendi recently told AdExchanger.com that Collective has a variety of “strategic options,” but it’s a “very attractive company that is probably a good public candidate.”

Whether investors will warm to it is up for debate, but they're likely to agree that indeed "life is but a screen." For better or worse.

This story has been updated to reflect the song Collective reportedly used as inspiration for its TV work.