• by Ken Liebeskind , February 6, 2002

What will the future bring for the cable advertising industry? The 20th annual Cable Advertising Conference held by the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau in New York yesterday, pointed to new kinds of advertising not restricted to TV.

The conference began with brief discussions of the numbers -- 55 ad supported cable networks generated $15 billion in revenue last year, up 3% from the year before. Also, there were brief discussions of the current economic climate, most echoing keynote speaker Lou Dobbs, anchor of Lou Dobb's Moneyline on CNN, who projected a full recovery later this year.

But most of the speakers avoided these topics, in favor of looking at new forms of advertising that will take cable TV in new directions in the months and years ahead.

Keith Reinhard, chairman of DDB Worldwide, spoke about convergence, using the example of bmwfilms.com, which incorporated BMW advertising into feature films. "Is it entertainment, advertising or media?" he asked, with the answer being all three.

Many of the other speakers in panel discussions throughout the day offered their own examples of convergent or multimedia programs, in which cable ads work with other vehicles to provide advertisers with a new way to market their products.

For example, the Lifetime network successfully worked with Proctor & Gamble and Walmart on Speaking of Women's Health, a Lifetime program supported by P&G and Walmart, with related print advertising and in-store promotions at Walmarts. Another success story was Radio Shack, which worked with Nickelodeon on a campaign that promoted Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius toys, based on the movie and TV show, that were sold in the stores. The campaign included TV ads and a Nickelodeon website. Another popular example was E. and J. Gallo Winery, which advertised on E! to promote a Sundance Film Festival sweepstakes that also drove retail traffic.

These campaigns "take you out of spots and dots," one participant said, a phrase that explains the move away from straight TV to multimedia platforms.

The best examples of such campaigns came at the afternoon breakout session, "The Web and the Networks," where the use of cable TV websites was discussed. C. P. Robinson, media director at Johnson & Johnson, discussed his company's work with MTV to create Mtvgirl.com, a website that mixes teen content with J&J advertising for teen oriented products like Acuvue and Neutrogena. TV spots on MTV were used to drive traffic to the site. "Cable gave us a distribution we couldn't get with stand alone," Robinson said, explaining why the company used MTV instead of starting its own website. The site uses content panels to advertise products.

Nick Pahade, VP/managing director of Beyond Interactive, discussed his agency's campaign for Dairy Queen, which used TV ads on the Cartoon Network to drive viewers online to search for local Dairy Queen locations where they could get free Power Puff Girl figurines. The Cartoon Network website was used, which "takes advantage of the Net," Pahade said. The success metric for the campaign was the number of times consumers went online to find Dairy Queen locations, he said.

Sarah Fey, president of Carat Interactive, lauded these campaigns, both from an advertising and media buying perspective. "Reaching them in different ways allows you to target your audience more effectively. When we buy media, that's what we want to do," she said.