1st December 2010
Customer viewpoint about Advanced Advertising
The concept of advanced advertising is nothing new. Print publishers have been offering advanced advertising since the 1980s. A person reading the New York Times in one area can be reading a different edition to someone who lives 30 minutes away. Until recently, this hasn’t been possible for TV advertisers. But thanks to standardisation efforts and the widespread adoption of digital TV, the much-needed scale now exists for this to change. Advanced advertising is poised to truly take off, enabling not just addressable advertising, but interactive advertising, voting and polling, and a whole host of other innovations.
One company that has been leading the way in advanced advertising - ever since its visionary experiments back in the 1970s - is Time Warner Cable. Chris Faw, Senior VP of Operations tells us about the advanced advertising innovations that Time Warner Cable has delivered so far and gives us his take on the future.
What has Time Warner Cable implemented in VOD and interactivity today?
Where do we start! We have a rich set of advanced offerings on the product front including VOD, RR.Com, Promotions on Demand, News Channels, etc. Time Warner Cable has blazed a trail in the interactive space for years with products like Voting & Polling and Request for Information. We’re currently retooling our delivery platform to use EBIF technology for interactivity. We have millions of set-top boxes now running EBIF with more to come over the coming months. We’re looking to build on our past experience in markets like New York City to make our product offerings even more thoughtful and meaningful to our advertisers. We believe the magic is really in first working with the client to select the right advertising products from a deep portfolio and then honing the creative to achieve the desired result.
How important do you see that activity for advertising revenue in the next five to ten years?
Interactivity offers a tremendous advantage to us. We have a digital mindset in all our departments that’s constantly focused on how to bring the best possible products to our advertisers. Those products are increasingly interactive solutions that offer an unmatched level of sophistication and telemetry. The pace over the next five to ten years is going to pick up exponentially and create a big opportunity for those who can harness their technology and quickly make it work for the client.
What needs to take place in the US or any other country for advanced advertising to take off?
For us to continue to be successful in the advanced advertising space, we must operate within a set of clearly defined standards. The work that SCTE, CableLabs, Canoe and our own internal development teams have done have gone a long way to support that tactic. The advertising community is looking for us to take something seemingly complicated and make it simple. If you can’t easily explain the process and workflow, your product is operating at a serious disadvantage. Common standards go a long way in keeping the story straightforward.
How important do you think advanced advertising will be to network operators in the next two, five, ten years?
If properly managed, it could be a huge game-changer. Even while other forms of media are proliferating, consumers still spend a big chunk of their day in front of the TV. They expect and get interactivity from a host of other devices. Since the first TV commercial encouraged viewers to “call now, operators are standing by”, there has been a need and desire for instant interactivity. We’re poised to give viewers that instant interactivity right from their remote control. Programming and advertising becomes a deeper, richer experience for the audience as well as the provider.
For more information:
Time Warner Cable Media Sales
