NewsLine Column: A Crucial Year For Interactive TV
Despite an overwhelming amount of hype surrounding its launch at the end of the nineties, interactive TV has been slow getting out of the blocks. However, after a number of false starts the medium is slowly finding its way into the marketing mix and Nigel Gwilliam, e-commerce and new media consultant at the IPA, is convinced the next 12 months will be crucial for interactive TV.
Historically interactive TV has promised a lot and delivered little. Soon after its much trumpeted arrival at the end of the nineties, technical limitations quickly became apparent. Not long afterwards cable companies began to financially implode and out of character, Sky, delirious with the promise of untold income, forgot about its customers’ experience.
Admittedly interactive television wasn’t helped by its arriving just as the dotcom bubble burst. Talk of the internet on your TV screen, walled gardens and T-commerce very quickly sounded hollow. However, even without this unfortunate timing, interactive television remained overpriced, over hyped and under used.
The lack of immediate commercial success did have one positive outcome however: broadcasters and platform owners were forced to concentrate on the consumer. Enhanced content was the name of the game with the 2002 World Cup perhaps representing a turning point in the nation’s collective awareness of interactive TV. The consumer started to get it, the technology stopped being just technology and became… useful. This set the stage for stable commercial development.
After the hype and the hangover of the last few years, 2003 has finally seen the first signs of iTV becoming a serious, albeit for now, small segment of advertising.
Some initial formats for basic iTV advertising have been accepted (Impulse Response, Dedicated Advertiser Locations [DALs] and mini-DALs) providing relatively simple and inexpensive ad opportunities.
Industry adoption of these basic standards, has seen first quarter sales at Interactive Digital Sales dwarf annual sales figures for all 2002 and Sky is set to see a 30-50% rise in iTV campaign numbers year on year. As important as these first steps toward financial viability are, perhaps more crucial is the ongoing development of the structure, content and potential of the whole interactive TV universe.
Mainstream broadcaster ITV has finally joined the fray (see Who Wants to be a Millionaire interactive content & sponsorship), format and platform technologies continue to be deregulated but standardised, dedicated advertiser channels have arrived (see Thomas Cook TV), the branding value of a rich interactive environment is being realised (see Phosphorus’ work for KitKat), and crucially research initiatives are considering the measurement of value beyond response (IPA, BARB, Sky, ZipTV).
The IPA believes the next 12 months will define the rest of the decade. Already it’s clear that iTV will not merely be a data rich extension of direct response TV, this was just the easiest model to envisage and apply. How content, brand and response will intermingle is up for debate. The IPA’s Digital Marketing Group has a number of opinions in this area and plans to hold an event this Autumn to herald the arrival of iTV to mainstream advertising.
If you are involved in guiding the development of interactive TV advertising and want to influence the agenda of the event, please contact Nigel Gwilliam at the IPA, [email protected]
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