Ad agency experimentation in enhanced interactive television (ITV) has emerged, the most recent example being J. Walter Thompson, Detroit’s Ford Focus commercial, "Parking Lot," which debuted in five markets during last month’s Grammy Awards telecast (SHOOT, 3/10, p. 1).
Commercial production and post houses are also looking for ways to best foray into the field. There are currently 600,000 U.S. households with set top boxes capable of receiving enhanced fare—broadcast programming and commercials that have an interactive layer. According to some projections, that figure could increase to between 25 million and 35 million households in 2004.
Mixed Signals Technologies, Culver City, Calif., has made direct inroads into interactive TV programs—and indirectly facilitated interactive commercials—with its ITV DataFlo System, an integrated ITV production suite package of hardware and Advanced Television Enhancement Forum (ATVEF)-compliant software. Under the aegis of president/CEO Alex Thompson, the three-year-old Mixed Signals deploys its ITV DataFlo System to produce the interactive telecasts of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Additionally, Mixed Signals licenses its DataFlo System to networks that produce their own interactive programming, such as The Discovery Channel, the Game Show Network and The Weather Channel.
Thompson noted that while it has stopped short of marketing directly to ad agencies, Mixed Signals has impacted the spotmaking industry through its program producer and network clients. For example, King World—which distributes Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune—sells ad time on the interactive versions of the two popular game shows, and in the process has been introducing advertisers and their agencies to the enhanced spot arena. Columbia Tristar, which sells ad time for the Game Show Network, has also been exposing agencies and their clients to the ITV spot medium.
At next month’s NAB in the Sands venue, Mixed Signals will showcase an updated version of its DataFlo System to broadcasters and producers. But this time around, the company also hopes to make headway in the postproduction facility sector. To that end, Mixed Signals hired Colin Ritchie as VP of sales and marketing last month. The former business development manager at Quantel, Ritchie is well connected in the high-end post studio market, which he believes is keeping a watchful eye on ITV in order to best serve the needs of its program and spot clientele. Also helpful, he observed, is that while the technology of interactive content is "quite sophisticated," it’s also "fairly simple to apply within the creative framework of a commercial."
Thompson said she has held off on making a major push to agencies and commercial production companies. She explained that a consumer could be disappointed over the lag time between requesting and receiving interactivity in a given spot, since many set top boxes work off phone line modems. "By the time the connection is up and running for interactivity, the commercial is over," she related. "But in the context of an interactive program—where the viewer with the proper set top box can request interactivity as early as fifteen minutes prior to the beginning of the show—a two-minute lag time isn’t a factor. The viewer can be plugged in interactively for both the program and the commercials. That’s why we’ve focused as a company on interactive TV shows, as opposed to trying to make interactive commercials one at a time."
Once the new generation of set top boxes arrives in households sans any lag time problem, Thompson said that Mixed Signals would probably begin to more actively liaison with spot production houses and ad agencies. Several, she noted, have already contacted Mixed Signals, including bicoastal commercial production company Atherton, which earlier this month changed its name to Cylo (SHOOT, 3/17, p. 1) to reflect its diversification into new media. Cylo additionally opened a London office.
Mixed Signals’ offerings also include an ITV backend, Web site-based system that can track consumer feedback and requests. Thompson related that Mixed Signals is still developing compensation structures for its line of hardware, software and services. "It’s in an embryonic stage," she said, noting that the company has licensed systems and is tinkering with fees tied to the response rate from consumers who ask for information or a product sample from an advertiser. "Our main goal now is to educate the industry about the potential of interactive television, what it can do and how it can be done," said Thompson. "If we can properly and successfully educate people who are in the business of television, then this [ITV] market will mature and business models will develop."
