Rovi has spent 10 months building the Rovi Advertising Network, which reaches over 30 million North American households through the electronic program guides at pay TV companies and via CE makers that embed its technology in their equipment. It is now looking for companies in addition to Carnival, Brightline and Brightline’s clients to test their ads on Web-enabled devices, such as with Samsung’s smart TVs. It plans to launch additional field trials of the Network in the UK and Canada in the second half of this year.
The Rovi Advertising Network also includes the Web-based entertainment sites Sidereel.com and allrovi.com. Rovi Advertising Network viewers are consumers looking for something to watch on TV ‘ join the club! The Rovi Advertising Network offers advertising on Rovi guides ‘ a ‘home page’ of the TV where consumers can find out what’s on TV and interactive platforms including STBs, smart TVs, and Blu-ray players
‘Often used an average of eight times and 10 minutes daily, Rovi guides offer advertisers a way to reach engaged and active consumers,’ said Corey Ferengul, executive VP, product management and marketing at Rovi. He said the Advertising Network simplifies the process for advertisers by allowing them to apply their campaigns against a broader distribution and reach multiple types of TV viewers, transcending time-shifting and working with only one advertising company.
The company breaks its service into three parts:
– Standard Portal, where consumers can record, set a reminder, watch content or learn more about a product or promotion
– Video Portal, where consumers can click on the interactive banner by the guide, leading directly to video content or links to VOD folders on other pay-TV platforms for deeper audience engagement
– Dynamic Portal, which consists of video, graphics, text, programming and/or interactive content, offering consumers a variety of content choices accessed directly from an interactive banner by the guide, differentiating product and enhancing the consumer experience with a variety of user-driven content choices
‘TV advertising is changing fast, said Jeff Siegel, senior VP of advertising at Rovi. ‘To reach an increasingly fragmented entertainment audience, it is critical for brands to be at the leading edge of new methods for reaching consumers.’
‘The definition of television is clearly evolving as the TV has now become the home theater, video store, games arcade and much, much more,’ said Sasha Savic, chief commercial officer at the MPG ad agency. ‘Smart TVs now offer a more interactive, targeted, quantifiable medium for our clients.’