ALVISO, Calif.—TiVo, the company that offers "TV, Your Way" and has captured much industry attention largely due to its commercial-skipping capability, is set to implement the next phase of its advertising strategy during the first quarter of 2005. Specifically, it will introduce fast-forward "tagging." This new service means that when a viewer fast-forwards past an ad, an embedded graphic could pop up on the screen and notify them of the commercial.
"This will allow clients to reach consumers even when they fast-forward past advertising," explained Davina Kent, advertising and research sales manager at TiVo, which is headquartered in Alviso. "It will coincide with another tag, available when they do not fast-forward; one can click on the tag to view a video clip on the hard drive or request additional information."
Kent related that there is a key difference between the new service and the currently available, generic tagging system: "An advertiser can customize the tag with their brand or a call to action." As to how the service would be deployed, she noted, "It’s a pure media buy—they are buying air time."
"Everything we are rolling out in our next release is based on feedback from clients," Kent said. "We’ve been talking to all of our clients and agencies, and will continue to do so. … The premise is to move the customer through the sales cycle quicker by allowing them to view longform content, request a brochure and elicit a purchase." Looking further ahead, Kent reported that by the end of ’05, TiVo hopes to enable a viewer to order an advertised product while viewing television.
"Everyone is trying to come up with the next advertising model," said Damon Webster, a consultant for Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Torrance, Calif. "Ultimately, someone will have to pay for the programming … and there has to be a way to get the advertisers’ messages out."
But he’s not convinced that TiVo’s new service is the answer. "I love my TiVo, but I wish I didn’t have to see pop-ups," Webster said. "When pop-ups started coming up on computers, people couldn’t wait to find software to get rid of them."
John Staffen, executive creative director at Arnold Worldwide, New York, was relatively indifferent to the news. "The nature of advertising will work the same; we want to make ads that people will want to see," he said. "I think most good creative persons are not scared of TiVo—we actually embrace it. If you do a good commercial, people are going to watch it and take away from it what they want. TiVo is our friend. It makes bad ads less relevant and good ads more relevant. It costs the same to make good ads or bad ads. Why pay TiVo a premium on top of that?"
TiVo has already added numerous features this year, including HD capability, but when asked if the service would include HD for advertising, Kent reported that the company is "evaluating" the possibility, "but it’s not on our roadmap today."
