Advanced Television

BT Vision VOD target ads

December 6, 2007

BT Vision Download Store is trailing the launch of a new service that offers customers free film rental in return for watching targeted advertisements.

BT Vision, Hiro Media, Intel Corporation and FremantleMedia Enterprises will collaborate on a three-month trial offering Download Store customers three films, Mischief Night, Played and The Punk Rock Movie, at no cost. At the time of rental customers will be asked to download free video software from Hiro Media, a developer of innovative internet ad-supported-video-download technology. Viewers will then be asked to provide anonymous demographic information allowing the software to select adverts dynamically that are most suited to the answers provided.

Once downloaded, the film will be available for one month and providing the viewer is online, at each viewing different ads will be shown. Viewers can also send the films to friends via email to be viewed on the same terms. Breaks, which will be placed at appropriate places in the films, will include adverts provided by isobar, the digital advertising agency, from the AA, Norwich Union and Territorial Army, amongst others. The ads will not fast forward when viewed on a PC.

Antony Carbonari, BT Vision's interactive and commercial media director, said: "This will be a fascinating trial: the concept of targeted TV advertisements is now a reality through the combined technology behind BT Vision Download Store and Hiro's software. We believe that sympathetically-placed, targeted advertising, combined with a viral film-sharing capability, will be attractive to many customers in conjunction with free or reduced content prices."

Meantime BT Vision is also launching Microsoft Tasman that operates like a “website for TV”, allowing advertisers to create destinations on the service, enabling them to make more innovative and content-rich versions of the sites that sit behind “red button” services currently on TV.

It is also planning to launch an “advertiser zone” to act as a home for companies to build permanent sites within the BT Vision customer interface.

The company is also launching what it describes is a digital BT Vision “magazine” that will be accessible through the main menu on the TV service.

The “magazine”, called On Vision, will offer more information about programming on BT Vision over the Christmas season.

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Categories: Advertising, Articles, VOD