Mele’s Musings

TV’s Future Looks Like Web’s Present

Will web-like targeting save TV advertising?

Picture: AdAge.com

Article excerpt:  Forrester says targeted ads and a portal-like menu of options are coming to your set. TV advertising is poised to change dramatically over the next decade, embracing the kind of targeting and user control already common on the Web, according to a new report by Forrester Research. Forrester lays out a decade-long evolution that will ultimately result in most programming delivered on-demand with targeted ad messages based on location and behavior, along with community functions. This “Personal TV,” as Forrester calls it, would also deliver a Web-like experience for consumers, with a portal-like menu of programming options and search functions. Forrester sees this shift giving TV an opportunity to remain the dominant ad medium it is today. While a personalized offering would seem geared toward further audience fragmentation, Forrester anticipates systems that would allow advertisers to reach mass audiences in a targeted manner. What’s more, cable companies, with subscribers’ billing histories, know more about users than Web companies. Ultimately, TV will work like the Web, enabling viewers to interact with ads up to the point of purchase.
The rest: AdWeek.com

Musing:  The concept of personal TV is something that we at AARF have been talking about ever since I started working here 9 years ago.  We have always believed that someday advertising on TV will look more like advertising on the web than vice versa, and maybe now we are starting to see this change we have been expecting.  To me, the question has never been about whether or not customers will get more targeted ads based on their specific locations and more in-depth TV surfing and household purchase data.  The real question is on the depth of the data that will be available.  Part of that is based on how many activities TV-based ads will be able to drive and measure.  The TV medium is not well suited to interaction, and I have doubts about how much people really want to “surf” on their TV beyond flipping channels.  Because of that, the depth of data may be much more limited than it is online.  Online, I can find people who have purchased from me, have visited my site, etc. and so I can infer a great deal about their relationship with me.  Not sure that we will be able to get that depth of data on TV.  It will require a much different model than what exists now – in particular a new way of sharing and targeting against data that simply does not exist in the TV world.