It was like a Eureka moment sat in the bath, when we first asked ourselves the question ‘Addressable advertising, is it really such a good idea?’ Now we’re really starting to wonder.
First you have to be clear what they are ‘ advertising systems that can step back and take a view of their current missions for their customers, and take decisions on what advert to show someone at any given point in time, based on who they are, where they are and what they are watching.
We have to say when we first came across this concept about 5 years ago, it seemed brilliant. The question we were asking at the time was how do you advertise in a world where your ideal targets may never be watching TV at the same time and when video entertainment (in fact all forms of entertainment) are in the process of fragmenting.
That fragmentation is partly because people want to watch and listen to different content in different places, while doing different things, but also because the digitization of content and the miniaturization of devices has meant that it is simply possible for the first time.
The coolest thing is that if you take a nationwide TV broadcasting footprint and only show the jocks the advert about Home Box office fight nite, and only show the business people the advert about financial factoring, and only show the good time girls the averts about make up and fashion items, and only show the under tens the adverts about sweets and only show those people that have a three year old Ford on lease the adverts for the coming season’s car ranges, then each advert, theoretically, would be just as responsive as if you’d shown it to everyone. But you would have shown five times as many adverts. Presumably if it had the same effect, it should cost the same right? So magically, out of thin air, we will have created five times as much advertising revenue ‘ with no extra TV channels or programming.
But of course it doesn’t stop there. By creating delivery systems which can identify where all of the right people are whether they are watching TV, playing a PlayStation game, driving in their car, watching a DVD, browsing the internet or watching TV in a bar (yes there is a roadmap for that), you would be able to a) find them WHEN you want them and just go ahead and delivery your advert and b) you would be coping with the fragmentation of the entertainment universe and more than quadrupling the number of themed messages that a person absorbs in a day. Instead of 2.5 hours of adverts when they watch TV, you’d add the mobile TV, PlayStation, car riding, train travelling, working times of day to the great advertising pool.
So far no-one had delivered on this vision, except to a certain extent on the internet. But lots of companies are laying foundations while companies like Microsoft, Google and Nokia are putting together the applications that will be able to collect and deliver against this type of demographic/geographic combo.
Now let’s picture what it might be like. You are sitting in a bar, your handset has agreed to tell a Nielsen application where you are at any time, it decides that you are close enough to the 5 TV sets that are blaring out a ball game, and interrupts the ball game to talk about the new Ford range of SUVs. This is the 15th time you have seen the advert that day and you’re getting pretty sick of it since you have already been to the local franchise and ordered one.
You find a quiet part of the bar to check your messages. Your web browser kicks off and the same advert, sized for the handset, emerges, you kill the browser and go to your email, but an SMS alert arrives. Thinking it is your friend saying they are late you look at it, it turns out to be a competition for winning a Ford SUV. Your day continues like this. Every day, all day.
You get home, begin to watch TV with your wife and five year old ‘ now the system is confused. The TV has no idea of who is in the room. It would if you mobile handsets were on, but they are all off. The TV shows adverts for cars, for washing powder, and for children’s toys, one each, then rotates and you get power tools, funeral parlours and a Nintendo Wii game. You look at each other wondering which of you is supposed to be interested in funeral parlours and press the fast forward on your DVR. Would this world have effective advertising? Yes but it would also have constant revolutions of people trying to change, and simplify their visual experiences, to get away from the predictability of it all.
It would be so easy to create an anodyne, bland world of visual repetition with a limited number of advertisers and a fairly limited view of addressability, and perhaps that’s why no one has yet invested heavily in this kind of vision?