Hoping to give ad agencies more effective new ways to reach on-demand video viewers, Charter Communications Inc. today announced the launched of a multifaceted field pilot of what it calls dynamic on-demand advertising insertion, in St. Louis.
Charter says the trial follows the successful completion of its lab trial, in which advertising was dynamically inserted into on-demand programs, enabling ad copy to be refreshed and rotated among viewer sessions within minutes.
Helping generate ad revenue from on-demand programming is seen as a core business effort as many telcos claim they can’t cost-justify the infrastructure – mainly servers and related software – needed to add video-on-demand to their current TV services.
The team effort is part of an emerging trend whereby primarily cable provider equipment suppliers are working to develop systems that will enable them to better target ads used with their video programming. BigBand Networks Inc. recently demonstrated a capability it claims enable operators to deliver personalized ads.
Charter said Atlas, C-COR, Harmonic Inc. and TVN Entertainment Corp. are full participants in the software, hardware and workflow management needed to implement the new system. Ad agencies Oglivy North America, Mediaedge:cia and others are participating in the effort.
"Charter is now taking dynamic ad insertion to the next phase, which means deploying it as a field pilot focusing on delivering dynamic on-demand advertising built instantly in response to viewers' desires, all based on play lists by viewer sessions," said Todd Stewart, Charter's corporate vice president of national advertising sales and development. "This is a breakthrough that entirely changes the landscape of on-demand television advertising."
Charter says the field pilot was deployed in its St. Louis metropolitan market in late October.
Maria Mandel, partner, executive director digital innovation for OgilvyInteractive, said, "We are excited by the potential of dynamic on-demand television advertising and are looking forward learning its targeting and optimization capabilities."
Commercial content provided by advertisers is being placed in pre- and post-roll positions around free on-demand content provided by Hollywood.com Television and Vehix.com. Video sessions are created as they are ordered and allow ad copy updates without having to incur the cost of re-encoding and re-distribution.
The ultimate goal, Charter says, is to demonstrate the ability to immediately direct targeted messages to the right audience at the right time and reduce lead time from weeks to days. In the past, most video-on-demand advertising was tied to specific content for the run of the ad, which forced advertisers to commit to a lead time of several weeks and run generic copy.
"This is an exciting time for advertisers using Charter OnDemand," said Stewart. "When this product is fully developed and launched, advertisers will reach the audience they want, and viewers will see more of the products they actually desire."
Atlas On Demand www.atlassolutions.com
BigBand Networks Inc. www.bigbandnet.com
C-COR Inc. www.c-cor.com
Charter Communications Inc. www.charter.com
Harmonic Inc. www.harmonicinc.com
Hollywood.com Television www.hollywood.com
Mediaedge:cia www.mecglobal.com
Oglivy North America www.oglivy.com
TVN Entertainment Corp. www.tvn.com
Vehix.com www.vehix.com
