DVR subscription company wants to get into the TV metrics reporting business. It will begin offering data on both the programming and commercial viewing habits of its subscribtion base, data that would cover both live and time-shifted viewing. The new service, dubbed StopWatch, would provide second-by-second viewing data, something Nielsen has refused to do, likely because it hasn't figured out how to. Starcom has signed on as the first subscriber to TiVo's data.
One final note to the ad executive who wonders about whether or not information such as this is "projectable." It's 2007. Nothing is really projectable because new things are vying every 15 minutes for the attention of your consumer. And with the proliferation of choice your audience is fragmenting. The problem, though, is that TV ad buying is still done mostly on guesses and instincts, before the shows actually hit airwaves. If the system were reversed, and advertisers were charged based on the actual performance of the show containing their ad and the ad itself, the world would be a very different place.
If the TV networks think long and hard enough and convince themselves that the Super Bowl will remain untouched by DVR ad-skipping and that they can still charge outrageous prices for ads it just might come true.
It's a little hard to reconcile the two main points of this article, which is that on the one hand CBS is having a hard time selling the in-game inventory it has but, on the other hand, ad time is expected to rise in terms of sheer minutes.
As I'd mentioned before, Toyota is buying a pair of Super Bowl spots to promote their Tundra pick-up. That's just part of a $100 million campaign to try and double sales of the model.
Yes, the point of Chevy's contest for consumer-generated ads to air during the game is to attract real people and not necessarily suck up to other ad folks. Thank you. We know that.
Try and convince me - just try - that the announcement of Katie Couric's inclusion in the pre-game broadcast doesn't have something to do with boosting viewership as well as ad prices.
KFC is once again trying to outwit all those DVR users out there. If you watch next week's premiere of "American Idol" you'll see a new campaign for their Buffalo KFC Snacker that challenges viewers to spot the difference between this year's spot and last year's version. The first 10,000 people who figure out what that difference is and correctly identify it on the KFC website get a $1 coupon for a free Snacker. This follows two previous efforts last year to foil DVR fast-forwarding by embedding messages in the ad that could only be viewed when slow-watching and hiding a punch line in the commercial.
Ads are almost always out-of-date when a show is recorded on a DVR (digital video recorder) device like TiVo or another set-top box by the time it is watched. Microsoft has now filed a patent for a way to serve "current" targeted ads when a recorded show is being watched, so that the ads on the "recording" will have a chance to impact viewers instead of being too old to matter. It is an interesting idea but makes little sense if the ad will simply be fast-forwarded through anyway. At least they get points for thinking, but in my mind, the other downside is that I like to see the old ads that were running when I originally recorded something. I revel in nostalgic ad non-sense I guess you could say. I suppose that is only an ad-freak's problem (like me), one that sadly many regular-old-tv-watching folks wouldn't have. Man, I am an ad-freak, I just noticed. I wonder if my wife knows. Shhhh!
Blogging Stocks says that former New York mayor (and likely 2008 Presidential candidate) Rudy Gulliani has been hired by Circuit City to promote their Firedog home electronics expertise practice.
The guys at BS (heh) are also talking about how CNBC's Jim Cramer is hot on an outdoor advertising firm that is well positioned with new media technologies. Of course Cramer also likes very old-media companies as well.
Joystiq let's out a tremendous "well duh!" over an article that says games like Halo 3 are going to be big sellers. They also mention that even games set in the distant past can get in-game ad dollars - it just requires a bit of creative thinking.
PVR Wire passes on an early rejected ad from TiVo that mocks the very idea of network programmers still having control over TV watching schedules. PVW is also giving us more details on TiVo's "program placement" product and passes along the discontent they and other people are feeling over Comcast putting ads on their program guide.
There's an old adage, it might even be from the Bible, that warns that no man can serve two masters. Unfortunately that's the position that TiVo increasingly finds itself in. While customers love the ad-skipping they can do with the service, the company is enjoying the revenue that comes from finding new and innovative ways to serve ads to those same customers. CEO Tom Rogers seems to be paying lip service to the former use while cozying up more and more to the ad industry.
Rogers points to deals the company has done to deliver ads as a major revenue source for TiVo in the future. He wants to position the company in such a way that the ad industry works with it to develp new ways to serve ads that aren't skipped and don't fall into the 30-second spot model. I think this is a fantastic plan, assuming the long-range goal is to honk of a significant portion of the user base. A better model to pursue, I believe, is the one given a short mention at the end of the article: Position TiVo as a valuable resource of reliable data on consumer ad-watching behavior. The company likely has tons of data on what ads were watched, which ones weren't, which ones were watched multiple times and other such slices and dices.
OK, here's the update on the Nielsen commercial ratings debacle that's coming after the research company held a meeting with agencies and networks to determine the best way to go forward:
The idea of counting only "live" data is dead. All parties seemed to agree that "live plus two or three days" is going to offer the best set of data that both buyers and sellers can live with. This gives buyers a small enough window that their finely-timed campaigns can still be gaged for effectiveness but a big enough window that network sellers don't wind up throwing themselves out a window.
Nielsen will provide raw data to both agencies and networks so that they can figure out for themselves what information to use to create minute-by-minute ratings. This seems like a bit of Nielsen saying "Look, the two of you fight it out and we'll provide the weaponry" but maybe that's just me. Unfortunately this will start just a few weeks before the next upfronts so that probably won't be enough time for a common currency to be agreed upon. That has some buyers honked off.
40 percent of TV viewing is now being done via some sort of time-shifting, a much larger percentage then had previously been thought. That means that if the networks had once again caved and accepted rates based only on "live" data they would have lost about $600 million in 2007, which is getting up towards some serious money.
Twice the number of online users are using spam filters and internet pop-up blockers now than were two years ago according to a new Forrester study. Over half of US users use one or both of these technologies to save themselves from unwanted ads and emails. That number goes up to 81 percent when you just look at broadband users.
Online tactics are just one facet of how Americans are choosing to tune out ads. The largest ad-avoidance tool used is the National Do-Not Call Registry that takes people off of telemarketer's lists. Then there's the DVR that allows people to fast-forward or skip entirely unwanted commercials.
Forrester throws the ad industry a rope by encouraging marketers to find ways to enhance and facilitate the user experience rather than disrupt it. They also recommend a switch from the simple counting of ad views to a more action-based measurement system that shows how that ad impacted actual behavior.
Slashfood is creeped out by an Xbox game from Burger King that features The King sneaking around forcing hamburgers down the throats of passers-by.
Sony, according to TUAW, has co-opted Apple's "Mac Vs. PC" style and added a third character, the Vaio, in an effort to differentiate itself from the rest of the personal computing market.
Joystiq raises a couple of issues with the latest ad from Circuit City promoting the Playstation 3.
Joystiq also puts in their two cents on the Double Fusion/Take Two ad placement deal.
Our friends at PVR Wire are pointing out how TiVo, by adding more and more advertising to the user experience, is actually drifting away from the whole point behind people's purchase of a TiVo.
Break.com and their plan to pay people for short films gets some press on DVGuru.
TV Squad mentions Comedy Central has picked up the animated series "L'il Bush." The concept started out as a series of shorts produced by Amp'd Mobile.
Also at TV Squad comes word that the soap opera "Days of Our Lives" will be holding a contest asking viewers to name the baby of a main character.
According to Blogging Stocks, KISS guitarist Paul Stanley is selling signature guitars at Target.
Blogging Baby weighs in on the issue of pediatricians calling for a ban on fast-food advertising to kids.
TiVo is adding yet another feature that caters to the advertisers who are worried that people are fast-forwarding through the regular ads. The DVR service is adding "program placements" that will insert an ad at the end of a program when you're done skipping through everything. The advertisers will identify certain programs they want to their ads to and those ads will appear when the show is done. As PVR Wire says, this program seems to be predicated on the notion that people are ultimately as interested in the ads as they are the show they're watching. At least, based on the release wording, it seems like this is in some way a program viewers can either opt-in or opt-out of but how isn't clear.
Considering that a new study shows 30 percent of US homes have DVRs in some way, shape, or form, it's increasingly important for advertisers to find new ways to reach TV viewers.
Lots of good stuff from around the WIN world lately:
Slashfood explores 2007's likely food trends, including a heavy emphasis on the marketing of foods whose ingredients come from the Amazon region and other such exotic locales.
An ad for the PSP game system popped up on MarthaStewart.com and PSP Fanboy has a screengrab along with with comments about how Sony's marketing the item to moms.
Blogging Baby points out that rapper 50 Cent has a problem with guns being OK on the posters for every movie but his own.
TV Squad talks about the old sitcom "Bosom Buddies," with Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari playing two cross-dressing advertising execs, coming to DVD.
The growing rise of advergames by companies is touched on by our friends at Joystiq.
PVR Wire has a ton of good posts up, including a YouTube channel of TiVo promos, this note on Charter Communication's new VOD advertising program, a study showing that DVRs won't mean the end of TV commercials, an ad from Radio Shack for a Series 2 TiVo and a DirecTV ad from Uruguay.
Styledash wonders just how much of the excitement over the "right-hand ring" is due to consumer demand or marketing hype.
Fellow WIN site PVR Wire is reporting that some Time Warner Cable subscribers are having problems finishing off their whiskey. I'm sorry, that should have read they're having problems fast-forwarding through Dewar's Whiskey's commercials. The problems seem to be happening on DVR boxes received from Time Warner and may actually be a problem on any commercial featuring plain text that's on-screen for an extended period of time as the Dewar's ad does. If you're persistant and keep holding the forward button it does kick in eventually but it still seems odd. Dewar's denies its ads are skip-proof in any way.
Steve Safran at Lost Remote catches an interesting little bit of voice-over work during a recent episode of NBC's "Heroes." The narrator says, "Don't hear about it in the morning. Be there Monday night." That's an obvious ploy to get people to feel pressured to watch the show live and not on DVR the next day or the day after that. something that he rightly points out is all about ad dollars. The network needs to build live-viewing behavior in the audience now before they have to stop charging for time-shifted viewings.
The VCR has emerged as the next point of contention in the debate over the reporting of commercial ratings numbers by Nielsen Media Research and the use of those numbers in television ad buying negotiations. That's because VCRs are much more prevalent than DVRs are and really allow for the same sort of time-shifting, albeit in a low-tech way. Nielsen, the networks and ad buyers all continue to argue over what sort of data to include in streams and chunks and bite sized portions, a debate that really has no foreseeable end in sight. As always, the stakes are pretty high since, without commercial measurement, ad placement and timing never really mattered. With it, though, those things become all important and the whole economic idea of television advertising is changed.
It's good advice that Euro RSCG CEO David Jones was dispensing, but I think he was going about it the wrong way. Jones said that creative types just need to get on with being creative and stop worrying about consumer research. He says marketers need to think of themselves as content creators and not marketers, but I don't think that's quite right. You're very much still marketers, but that's the content you're creating.
Les Moonves thinks that next year he and other network owners are going to start getting paid by advertisers for commercials watched by DVR viewers. I'm going to not comment because my mother told me to not say anything if I couldn't say something nice.
The NFL is about to break the first spot in the campaign encouraging people to create their own Super Bowl commercial. Yay?
DVR subscription company wants to get into the TV metrics reporting business. It will begin offering data on both the programming and commercial viewing habits of its subscribtion base, data that would cover both live and time-shifted viewing. The new service, dubbed StopWatch, would provide second-by-second viewing data, something Nielsen has refused to do, likely because it hasn't figured out how to. Starcom has signed on as the first subscriber to TiVo's data. 
If the TV networks think 
KFC is once again trying to outwit all those DVR users out there. If you watch next week's premiere of "American Idol" you'll see a new campaign for their Buffalo KFC Snacker that challenges viewers to spot the difference between this year's spot and last year's version. The first 10,000 people who figure out what that difference is and correctly identify it on the KFC website get a $1 coupon for a free Snacker. This follows two previous efforts last year to foil DVR fast-forwarding by embedding messages in the ad that could only be viewed when slow-watching and hiding a punch line in the commercial.
Blogging Stocks says that former New York mayor (and likely 2008 Presidential candidate) Rudy Gulliani has 
There's an old adage, it might even be from the Bible, that warns that no man can serve two masters. Unfortunately that's the position that TiVo increasingly finds itself in. While customers love the ad-skipping they can do with the service, the company is enjoying the revenue that comes from finding new and innovative ways to serve ads to those same customers. CEO Tom Rogers seems to be paying lip service to the former use while cozying up more and more to the ad industry. 
OK, here's the update on the Nielsen commercial ratings debacle that's coming after the research company held a meeting with agencies and networks to determine the best way to go forward:
Twice the number of online users are using spam filters and internet pop-up blockers now than were two years ago according to a new Forrester study. Over half of US users use one or both of these technologies to save themselves from unwanted ads and emails. That number goes up to 81 percent when you just look at broadband users. 
Slashfood is 
TiVo is adding yet another feature that caters to the advertisers who are worried that people are fast-forwarding through the regular ads. The DVR service is adding "
Lots of good stuff from around the WIN world lately:
Fellow WIN site PVR Wire is reporting that some Time Warner Cable subscribers are having problems finishing off their whiskey. I'm sorry, that should have read they're having problems fast-forwarding through Dewar's Whiskey's commercials. The problems seem to be happening on DVR boxes received from Time Warner and may actually be a problem on any commercial featuring plain text that's on-screen for an extended period of time as the Dewar's ad does. If you're persistant and keep holding the forward button it does kick in eventually but it still seems odd. Dewar's denies its ads are skip-proof in any way.
Steve Safran at Lost Remote catches an interesting little bit of voice-over work during a recent episode of NBC's "Heroes." The narrator says, "Don't hear about it in the morning. Be there Monday night." That's an obvious ploy to get people to feel pressured to watch the show live and not on DVR the next day or the day after that. something that he rightly points out is all about ad dollars. The network needs to build live-viewing behavior in the audience now before they have to stop charging for time-shifted viewings.
The VCR has emerged as the next point of contention in the debate over the reporting of commercial ratings numbers by Nielsen Media Research and the use of those numbers in television ad buying negotiations. That's because VCRs are much more prevalent than DVRs are and really allow for the same sort of time-shifting, albeit in a low-tech way. Nielsen, the networks and ad buyers all continue to argue over what sort of data to include in streams and chunks and bite sized portions, a debate that really has no foreseeable end in sight. As always, the stakes are pretty high since, without commercial measurement, ad placement and timing never really mattered. With it, though, those things become all important and the whole economic idea of television advertising is changed.
It's good advice that Euro RSCG CEO David Jones was 
