Article explains the importance as well as the value of "push" and "pull" technology.
Cable, Broadcast Heavyweights See New Age For TV Ads
REUTERS
Television today is still very much a passive medium, in which programming is "pushed" on to the consumer, whereas consumers "pull" information off the Internet.
"When you mix the 'push' and 'pull' mediums in television, you can not only directly engage people, but better track the audience and move them directly to sales," Steve Guggenheimer, group product manager for digital television for Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), told Reuters in an interview.
Some analysts predicted that online advertising will be 50 percent larger than cable television's existing advertising base withing five years. About $45 billion is currently spent annually on broadcast and cable TV advertising combined, according to analysts.
ANAHEIM, Calif., Dec. 3 — Soon just watching TV commercials won't be enough. You're going to have to interact with them, too.
As the Internet becomes available on television sets, cable operators and broadcasters are moving to make sure that advertising keeps up with the changes, industry leaders said at the Western Cable Show on Thursday.
"Internet advertising (on television) is happening, and uses of it are happening in ways that we never expected it to happen," Cox Communications Inc. COX. Chief Executive James Robbins said.
By year's end more than 2 million digital TV set-top boxes, capable of delivering Internet access, video on demand, online shopping and in-home networking on televisions, will have been shipped, analysts say. That number should double in 1999.
"We will be putting Internet on TV screens in large numbers very shortly. Programmers will be developing content that plays across each platform, but differently across each platform," John Malone, chief executive officer of Telecommunications Group Inc. (NASDAQ:TCOMA), said at the Western Cable show in Anaheim, Calif.
Television today is still very much a passive medium, in which programming is "pushed" on to the consumer, whereas consumers "pull" information off the Internet.
"When you mix the 'push' and 'pull' mediums in television, you can not only directly engage people, but better track the audience and move them directly to sales," Steve Guggenheimer, group product manager for digital television for Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), told Reuters in an interview.
"There's lots of really creative things you can do, but now the challenge is the business models (for advertising) will change. Traditional advertising in television is all about how many eyeballs you can hit, while traditional Web advertising is based on a set way of tracking how many people click on a Web site," he said.
Industry experts said TCI plans to form a task force of leading cable operators, broadcasters and advertisers to work on issues like revenue sharing, security and pricing that will be changed as a result of more interactive advertising.
Some analysts predicted that online advertising will be 50 percent larger than cable television's existing advertising base withing five years. About $45 billion is currently spent annually on broadcast and cable TV advertising combined, according to analysts.
Industry leaders said commercials would differ from the jingle-driven ads of yesterday as companies try to appeal to the more upscale, educated TV-Internet viewer.
Scott Sassa, head of NBC Entertainment, said the consumers of its CNBC cable channel and NBC's related Web sites reflect a high-income bracket.
"They're off the map," Sassa said. "We advertised a house in Florida on the beach for sale on CNBC for $2.3 million and had 200 qualified offers from viewers," he said. "As for as our Web sites, by definition, people who can afford personal computers and Internet access are generally more upscale," he said.
"I think what's going to have to happen in the converged media is that advertisers are going to have to think about the fact that people are sick of being pushed," said Geraldine Laybourne, chief executive of Oxygen Media, which is starting a new cable channel for women with partners Oprah Winfrey and prime-time producer Marcy Carsey.
"Consumers actually like being given more information and want to go deeper into it," Laybourne said. "Advertisers have to learn to live in a more persuasive land rather than with (brand) bombardment."
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