Virgin’s offering is “big screen VoD advertising”

There was little debate to be had in the interactive session at the ISBA conference in London today but the most interesting out-takes were probably those from Mark Brandon, commercial director at Virgin Media Digital Sales.

He described the business’ advertising sell, based on its new position in the market as a platform, rather than a media owner.

“We have information that can be leveraged by advertisers as a marketing opportunity; we see the advertising oportunity as indistinguishable from the data opportunity,” he said.

Virgin are offering “big screen VoD advertising”, with shorter ad breaks, offering (somewhat like Sky earlier in the day)  “greater opportunity for targeted, strong communications.”

Brandon pointed to a “quantifiable and valuable audience migrating from linear to on-demand… we have made it possible for you to insert advertising into on-demand areas we are having success with.”

He admitted that the “game has got more complicated for all of us” but said it would work for everyone via collaboration (a point later agreed with by ITV’s MD of commercial Fru Hazlitt).

Virgin don’t see ITV or Channel 4 as competitors, but as “clients and customers of ours. The market looks at things in an adversarial way; we will make a market by collaboration,” he said.

As to trading, Brandon was adamant that big screen VoD would not be traded in the way that online is.