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TiVo Taps into Choose-Your-Own-Commercials Option
TV networks and advertisers claim that TiVo and other DVR services kill their ad revenue by letting users “fast forward” through TV commercials. Today, to help reverse that image, TiVo launches Product Watch, a service that lets TiVo subscribers choose which ads they want to see. Now advertisers can reach TiVo users without relying on the much-maligned 30 second spot. Users will be able to search through ad and product information spots ranging in length from 1 to 60 minutes from five different ad categories like finance, travel, and lifestyle.
More than 70 advertisers have signed up for the launch of Product Watch, including well-known advertisers like General Motors, Kraft Foods, and Sony Pictures. Ads from these companies are served to TiVo viewers on an opt-in basis. “TiVo Product Watch will, for the first time, enable TV viewers to get commercial information about a product they are interested, when they want it, rather than through traditional TV advertising, where a viewer has no control of what ad comes on when they are watching a program,” said TiVo CEO Tom Rogers in a statement. Since they’re directly searched for by the viewer, Product Watch ads will typically provide more product information and content that the usual flash and pizzazz of the 30-second spot.
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Reader Comments.
Ron Kaatz did exactly the same thing via an interactive cable project in Peabody Mass…in the late 70s/early 80s…and had phenomoenal results…credit should be paid to the originator of the idea, Ron Kaatz, former head of Research at JWT Chciago
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