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The group had a meeting with Geoff today to discuss our group progress presentation last week. Geoff told us the overall mark we got and it was really surprising to hear how well it was. Each of us haven’t even present to each other on what we’ve done that day. We just discussed for awhile on who’s going first and we just presented to the class. So I guess each of us are on the right track with the information we have and everything.

So here’s what Geoff has mentioned from our practice presentation that we need to remember and include in our final presentation:

Brand Funded Content

Brand funded content is programs that are financially produced by companies as means of advertising. This technique is slowly but widely increasing as a creative channel for marketing (Alarcon). Companies invest to produce shows with the goal of getting their names across more audiences. It is beneficial because advertisers will reach their target with the show’s intended audience (Alarcon). Even if that is not the case, the message is still set across through the show to who ever watching it. The broadcasters also benefit from this because it offers new market for the channels. Examples of brand funded contents are “Seventh Heaven” and “Gilmore Girls” by the Family Film Fund, “The Pepsi Max World Challenge” by Pepsi and “So Fresh” by Universal Music and Sony, and “Blokesworld” by VB and Ford.

- Alarcon, C.

Product Placement

Product placement means branded products or services that are placed within programs like movie, TV sitcom, game shows, and news. It’s a form of marketing where the company pays the show to have their product integrated into the storyline. The show will use their product as part of the props. Sometimes product placement happens not because the company wants to but the director or producer feels that it suits the story, so they will come up with a proposal and make a deal with the company brand. With this method, the brand obtains the benefits of conventional advertising without being exceedingly obvious or intrusive to the audience/consumers (Neer). A survey done by Decima Research in April 2006 illustrates that 69% of viewers feel that it is an effective form of advertising and 48% feel that it is intrusive (Decima Research 2006).

- Neer, K.
- Decima Research 2006. Product Placement Works, news release, Decima Research Inc., Ottawa, 21 April.

Interactive Advertising

This method means adding interactivity to the advertisement so viewers can engage with the ad. This means giving the chance for viewers to respond immediately to the brand turning them from passive to active viewers (Thinkbox 2006). With an interactive advertisement, a digital application will appear on top of a normal-length TV commercial that viewers can access with their remote (1). Here, viewers can engage with anything from requesting product samples, getting hold of a customer support representative to viewing new movie trailer.

This method of advertising is used on Foxtel IQ that was launched in April 2005 (2). The companies that were first involved were Toyota and Commonwealth. According to Multi Channel Network (MCN), the sales arm for Foxtel, interactive advertising increases engagement and involvement of viewers with the ads, improve their recall and awareness, and increases purchase intent (2).

- Thinkbox 2006
- 1MCN Interactive Advertising
- 2MCN Australian Case Studies

Telescopic

Telescopic ads or telescoping means advertisers will have to produce various versions of the same product; a standard length of thirty seconds commercial that will air normally and an extended length up to ten minutes commercial that audiences can view with a touch of a button (Varan 2003). When someone watches a product or service that they are interested in, they only need to press the button on the remote and watch the extended commercial video for more information. With this feature, consumers are motivated to respond to the brand in a way that is not possible with the traditional thirty seconds commercial (2003).

- Varan, D 2003. ‘Consumer Insights Associated with Interactive Television’ in Conference Publication 2003, Interactive Television Research Institute, Australia, pp.563-571.

Addressable advertising

This method of advertising is designed to target customers on a more personal level; to address customer with products or services that suit him or her. There are different forms of addressable advertising which are thematic targeting, geographic addressability and home addressability.

Thematic targeting means advertisers use the type of audience that is associated to the product they want to sell. With the multi-channels offered by cable TV comes the increased number of channels that specialized for specific audiences. Therefore, advertisers need only to place ads in the channel that relate to their target audience.
For example, a cosmetic brand would promote their make-up products on the Fashion Channel (Dureau 2004).

Geographic addressability is specializing ads for local placing. Advertisers outline their customers based on where they live. Ads that are produced will have contact details according to the geographic region. This can allow advertisers to run with special offers and then stop it automatically the moment the offer expires (Dureau 2004).

Home addressability means reaching its customer through each household. Profiles of consumers in a household will be given to the advertisers and they will place ads that fit the consumers’ details and criterions. This includes their shopping habits and personal preferences Ad agencies will have to produce multiple ads to reach different audiences simultaneously. As a result, ads that are shown will have higher relevance to the audience hence, maximizing the subscribers’ satisfaction (Dureau 2004).

According to Vincent L. Dureau (2004), home addressable advertising is the best method out of the three because it gives more value to advertisers and increases revenue. Home addressable can reach any buyergraphics rather than demographics.

- Dureau, VL 2004. ‘Addressable Advertising on Digital Television’ in Broadcastasia2004 International Conference Paper, Open TV, Corp., USA, pp.1-17.

By now it’s confirmed that my research is to focus on the digital advertising methods that advertisers have to employ in challenging the use of PDR. I’ve narrowed them down to: addressable advertising, interactive advertising, telescopic ads, brand-funded content and product placement.

Previously, the advertising methods also include VOD (video-on-demand) and how advertisers will include little pop-up banners in the video to advertise their products. However I realized that VOD is not part of PDR and it’s where customers order a film to watch, pay for it and the film will appear on their television. But VOD service is widely available through the internet and not many cable operator offers the service. Furthermore, VOD alongside PDR raised the same issue of losing method in targeting advertising customers. Therefore, I cannot include it to be part of the advertising methods.

How is it possible to recall the ads when you are actually fastforwarding them? I don’t own a PDR myself so I never experienced the features it has to offer. In an article that I found, it says that a study was published explaining on how the process of skipping commercials may actually enhance a viewer’s ability to recall ads. It shows that the viewers are able to recall 23 percent of the commercials they skipped over. I guess it’s like fastforwarding movies on the VCR or DVD player, you can still watch what’s going on on the TV screen and you’ll stop fastforwarding at the part you want to watch.

Another article from MediaWeek supports this, saying that a study by marketing research company Millward Brown, has found there is no difference in advertising recall or ad recognition between PDR owners and non-owners for ads aired on network TV during prime time.

Dave Poltrack, executive VP and chief research officer for CBS Corp., said the research from an independent firm other than the networks themselves “demonstrates there is value in watching ads in fast-forward mode and now we have to come up with compromise as to what that value is worth.”

It’s the turn of an era where television is becoming more interactive with the audiences. What was once a one sided broadcast medium has turned into a two way channel. The demand of technology convergence is largely responsible for how television is looking into delivering new interactive content to its audiences as well as adapting to combine with the Internet and mobile phone.

Take BBC, The Times reported on April 26, 2006 that they have signaled the end of traditional broadcasting after announcing a strategy that will allow viewers to control when and how they watch programmes. They recognized how BBC was increasingly seen as irrelevant by younger audiences. So their new strategy is making the content delivered “on-demand” to the licence-fee payer through handheld devices, computers and mobile phones as well as digital television sets.

Mark Thompson, the Director-General said: “There’s a big shock coming. The second wave of digital will be far more disruptive than the first and the foundations of traditional media will be swept away, taking us beyond broadcasting.”

Among the new plans are viewers will be able to transfer programs, stored in MP3 file form, between different devices. Radio listeners will be encourage to create their own personalised stations, reflecting their musical and speech tastes, from BBC podcasts. The BBC will also challenge ITV and Channel 4 by creating a new broadband-based “teen brand” aimed at children from 12-16, showcasing drama, comedy and music. Mass audience programs can be viewed with BBCiPlayer, a downloadable software allowing people to view BBC programs on demand for seven days after their original transmission.

More on this, here.