Targeted TV Ads in 2013: Platform Operators Want a Bigger Slice of the Pie

  • Targeted video ads will make their way into living rooms in 2013 as two of the UK’s largest TV operators plan to implement the strategy.
  • “Leading provider BSkyB will trial-launch an NDS Dynamic-powered service to seven million set top boxes under the AdSmart banner by the summer, allowing advertisers to target 90 different demographic attributes,” reports paidContent.
  • “When a break contains a Sky AdSmart instruction, a unique code is sent to all Sky+HD STBs at the precise moment selected in the schedule,” explains BSkyB. “Households with matching attributes will seamlessly trigger the playing of an appropriate ad for the circumstances.”
  • Ads are pushed via satellite dishes and are stored for later playback. “Some 500,000 of the 1.3 million Internet-connected boxes Sky has in the market will be used as a viewing panel, recording an ad impression when at least 75 percent of the ad is viewed,” according to the post.
  • For now, the ads will only appear on Sky’s own channels: Sky 1, Sky Sports, Sky Atlantic, Sky Movies, Sky Arts, Sky Living, Challenge and Pick TV. Cable operator Virgin Media also says it will start to roll out targeted TV ads, but details are not yet available.
  • “Further ‘targeted’ ad initiatives like these will need to prove both that they can target further than the conventional TV schedule, and work effortlessly, to trump the established paradigm,” notes the post. “These launches’ biggest impact could be to establish platform operators, not broadcast networks, as the more innovative ad targeters.”

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