John Lewis captures the hearts of Britain

Created by UK agency Adam & Eve for department store John Lewis, the retailer says that the ad – which features a reworking of Billy Joel’s Always A Woman To Me soundtracking a woman’s life story – has resulted in an astonishing 39.7% leap in sales.



It’s certainly capturing the public’s imagination in the UK. Several mainstream British papers have written about it, and I think it’s the first time my parents have ever emailed me about an ad. As The Observer puts it:

“All over Britain, women are kneeling in front of their tellies, heads low, shoulders shaking, tears and mucus dripping from their reddened faces like rain from a suburban gutter.”

I can’t think of another ad, which has such a positive response from the mainstream press so quickly:

* John Lewis ‘Spend it before you die’ ad puts sales up 40% – Observer
* Genius of John Lewis’s everywoman ad wins female vote – Guardian
* She’s ad us all in tears – The Sun
* John Lewis advert prompts iTunes release of Billy Joel cover – Telegraph
* John Lewis’ £6m advert becomes a YouTube hit - Metro
* The £6m ad that’s got Britain talking – and sobbing – Daily Mail

Mind you, at a reported $10m, it had better shift some units.

And as John Lewis isn’t in Australia, if I was Myer or David Jones, I’d be looking at the possibilities of licencing it for this market before my rival does.

Thanks to Tim Burrowes Mumbrella

P&G moves soap opera genre online

OK... work drowning out all chances of sharing some of the great sutff that's happening out there around, but in a rather pathetic attempt to keep the flame alive, here are a few of the little tidbits i've come across in the last few weeks. Enjoy

This from cincinnati.com about how P&G are taking some large steps into online content...

By David Holthaus • dholthaus@enquirer.com • October 4, 2009

Now that "The Guiding Light" is a part of soap opera history, the newest stars of a Procter & Gamble drama are not Reva and Josh of GL's fictional Springfield, but Suzie and Steve Barston of real-life Los Angeles.

The Barstons are the stars of a 12-part series called "A Parent is Born," found not on television, but on the newest medium of choice for the world's largest advertiser, the Internet.

The Webisode is the latest example of how P&G, the inventor of the daytime drama, has moved beyond the soap opera and into the digital world, but with the same purpose it had when it launched the "Ma Perkins" radio serial in 1933: to create an interested audience it can use to build loyalty to its brands.

With the demise of "The Guiding Light," which ran on radio and then on TV for 72 years, P&G owns only one soap, "As the World Turns." The company that once produced more than 20 of the daytime television staples has turned its entertainment attention squarely to the Internet, practically abandoning the daytime TV genre it invented.

"We literally moved from radio to TV, and now we're in the digital world," said Pat Gentile, who heads P&G Productions, the Cincinnati-based unit that oversees P&G's entertainment properties. "We're putting our focus on creating digital content."

Just as it did with the soaps, P&G is creating places where it can gather a big audience, with the goal of building goodwill toward brands such as Pampers diapers, Iams dog food, Febreze fabric freshener and Dawn dish soap.

Case in point is "A Parent is Born," which follows the real-life Barstons from early pregnancy through the birth of their first child in a series of four- to five-minute videos available on the Web. The series is sponsored by P&G's Pampers brand and is found on the Pampers Web site. A 30-minute version aired on DirecTV in late August, and P&G plans to syndicate the series in other online venues.

"A Parent is Born" doesn't directly sell Pampers but helps shape how consumers feel about the brand, building what Gentile and other marketers call "brand equity." Following the young couple as they learn the baby's gender, decorate the child's room and talk about their hopes for their budding family can build an emotional connection to the brand that is valuable for creating long-time customers.

For Pampers, a $9 billion P&G brand, the show helps position it as a product concerned not only about keeping babies dry, but about the well-being of families, a key marketing message in the company's plans to double Pampers sales over the next several years.

A just-launched Web site, www.dinnertool.com, like the soaps, doesn't carry only P&G advertising, but is meant to be a destination site that brings a like-minded audience together. Dinnertool is a meal-planning site that generates recipes from a given list of ingredients, giving Moms a place to go when they need ideas for mealtime. "It fits nicely with our brands," Gentile said, especially after-dinner cleaning products such as Joy, Dawn and Cascade.

Its other destination site is www.petside.com, designed for dog, cat and bird lovers. More than a million of them call up the site each month, Gentile said.

Like the soap operas that preceded them, the Web sites don't simply pitch P&G products, but are meant to be sites that people return to over and over again, creating an interested audience that may be more receptive to the P&G message.

"People believe you more," Gentile said. "They don't feel like you're trying to shove something down their throats."

Providing good information is the key to creating a loyal audience, said Chris Allen, a University of Cincinnati marketing professor. "It's about providing content that attracts specific communities of users," he said. "It's the future of marketing."

The Web sites enjoy a major marketing advantage over television: e-mail. Visitors to the sites are asked to register, enabling P&G to capture potentially millions of e-mail addresses that it can use for surveys, for regular e-mail newsletters or to tout new products.

"A big part of the whole agenda is building that marketing database," Allen said.

The decline of the soaps as a marketing technique is due partly to its limited flexibility as a one-way medium; we can only watch, not interact. But it's also due to their aging audiences, those that are outside the marketer's ideal demographic.

THE NEXT DIMENSION

Thanks Trendcentral for this on the fast approaching (virtual) world in 3D

With 3D this genuine, who needs reality?

3D is on its way to becoming the norm at the neighborhood multiplex, particularly for animated features and horror flicks. And while it may be a while before Woody Allen's next film visually plants us on a NYC sidewalk while screening in a Topeka theater, 3D soon will be moving from the cinema to the living room in order to enhance your home entertainment experience. Here's a look at some of these retina popping devices and how artists are taking the technology and running with it:

Sony 3D: Sony says it will have 3D technology in American living rooms by 2010 in products including BRAVIA LCD HDTVs, VAIO computers, Blu-ray discs and PlayStation 3. Although the idea of watching Lost in 3D is certainly not without its appeal, we expect that gaming may be the category to really lasso this technology. Today's new third dimension isn't like going to the arcade in the mid-'90s and paying $8 for three minutes of watching neon lines. It's adding a feeling of actual space. This could upgrade the "guy stuff" on your computer to a whole new intensity level - imagine video game bullets that feel like they're headed right into your couch.

i-3D Video Glasses : While Sony confirmed that they are going to have 3D TVs ready for gaming addicts next year, don't expect to be able to walk around images in the same way that Princess Leia circled Obe-Wan Kenobi begging for help. You'll still have to don some head gear to make the images pop off the screen. For those of us who can't wait for Sony to fine-tune the home 3D experience, the i-3D Video Glasses plug into any DVD or MP4 player and feed you video like Star Trek's Geordi LaForge got his. The images look like they're on a 80" x 69" screen, while you look like you need a ticket to Comic Con.

Projection Bombing : Let's not forget that our interest in 3D was sparked by illusions designed to look like they have depth. That concept is being stretched by street artists and, more recently, projection artists. A tech-driven evolution of graffiti, projection bombing is when fleeting images are transmitted on to unsuspecting walls and buildings with nothing more than a Honda generator, projector and laptop. (Check out this video of a digital tiger running across a city's buildings.) Urban Screen, a collective of German artists and architects involved in research and development of experimental media installations with the aim to stage urban displays, seems to be the leader in these optical assaults. The content housed in their Vimeo channel will trick your eyes even more than that online pinwheel everyone's been staring at to make their hands look like they're melting.

Myspace does reality TV

Thanks Mashabale for this latest move in Myspace land

March 25th, 2009 | by Adam Ostrow4 Comments

Now this makes sense. MySpace is getting into reality TV with a new Web-based series called “Married on MySpace” that will chronicle one couple’s journey to their wedding day, with MySpace members driving much of the decision-making in planning the event.

The process starts with couples submitting videos to MySpace and users voting on who should be featured. Once that has been determined, MySpace users vote on other aspects of the event, like selecting what the bride and groom wear, where they celebrate their bachelor and bachelorette parties, and the wedding location.

In all, there will be 13 websidoes of Married on MySpace, culminating in the selected couple’s wedding day. The series is being produced by Endemol USA, the company behind reality TV shows like Big Brother, Fear Factor, and Deal or No Deal, so the quality (or lack thereof depending on your point of view) should be up-to-par.

While MySpace () has conceded the race to be the top social networking site, it still has a place as one of the most popular entertainment destinations on the Web. Original, relatively low-cost programming like Married on MySpace that involves the community is a smart move, and something we’ll likely continue to see.

The trailer for Married on MySpace is embedded below:

Married on MySpace Trailer

Great Superbowl ads

(THanks to Futrelab for this post by: Roger Dooley)

Most of us have gotten over our short-lived obsession with the 2009 Super Bowl ads, but at neuromarketing firm Sands Research technologists have been slaving away analyzing all 72 of those commercials. Sands measures viewers’ EEG activity to gauge both emotional and cognitive responses to ads. In addition, they collect questionnaires before and after the ads are viewed.potato_head_RD.jpgWhat makes an effective TV commercial? Dr. Stephen F. Sands, Chairman and Chief Science Officer, says,”We have found that an engaging story that maintains the viewer’s attention throughout the commercial, like this year’s Bridgestone Tire’s Taters (Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head) commercial or Coke’s Heist spot with the animated insects stealing a bottle of Coca-Cola, provides an overall strong and sustained brain response and a better measurement of favorable brand opinion.” Here are Sands Research’s top 10:

1. Bridgestone / Taters - 5.04
2. Coke / Heist - 4.62
3. Pixar / Up - 4.40
4. CareerBuilder / Tips - 4.40
5. Budweiser / Clydesdale Circus - 4.39
6. Universal / Fast and Furious - 4.37
7. GE / Scarecrow - 4.29
8. Taco Bell / Overrated - 4.28
9. Pedigree / Crazy Pets - 4.23
10. NBC / LMAO - 4.20

The number following each ad is what Sands calls the Neuro-Engagement Factor (NEF).

The worst scoring ad in 2009 was E-Trade’s Talking Baby ad, which scored a mere 2.61 on the NEF scale. Sands attributed the poor showing, at least in part, to the fact that a similar ad had been running throughout the preceding year.

Check out the complete comparative scoring of the 2009 Super Bowl ads at sandsresearch.com.

Click here to go to the original post

Social Telly - a roundup of social viewing stuff

Thanks Simon for passing over this link to Roo Reynold's great post on social TV. Cool services making TV much more than the potato experience

Social Telly - a roundup of social viewing stuff
Posted by Roo - 25/11/08 at 10:11:22 pm

Television has always been a social thing. Whether it’s because you’re watching it with family and friends at home, watching football in the pub, chatting at school or work with friends about that programme that you all love the night before, television is about much more than a broadcast.

During the recent US election, I was being rather traditional, tucked up in bed listening to Radio 4 (quite different from my approach in the 2005 UK general election, when Nick and I were even live-blogging the action). While I was being sleepy and passive this year, my friend Jo was being social online. Here’s what her screen looked like, complete with live-streaming BBC News, IM chat and Twitter.

I’ve been building this list for ages, but it’s finally time for a roundup of social viewing tools. Here are some examples of how the web is being used to make different sorts of conversations possible around television:

Curation and communities

• There are a few blogs about television. Watchification is “selecting the really good stuff from the BBC iPlayer…” and other sources. (Disclaimer: I’m the tech geek behind the curtains at Watchification). Curation is interesting. By highlighting Twitter, Delicious and Flickr content, the tag pages are getting (IMHO) more useful too.

• Smashing Telly is “a hand edited collection of the best free, instantly available TV on the web”. Like Watchification, it’s an example of comments around curated programmes rather than live chat.

Social recommendations

• I keep hearing people asking ‘what’s the last.fm of television?’ Dan recently sent me an invite to Boxee, which apparently
  

  “gives you a true entertainment experience to enjoy your movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central, Last.fm, and flickr.”

  I’ve only just started using it, and although it seems far from perfect it is only an alpha at this stage. The integration with other platforms, the desktop app and the last.fm-like scrobbling looks interesting.

• TIOTI has been around for a bit longer than Boxee. It invites you to:
  

  Find your favorite TV shows and brand new ones you’ll love, Share shows you like with your friends and see what they are watching, Download or stream TV shows from dozens of places online, Get involved and post your thoughts, improve our guide or add pics and vids.

Annotations

• YouTube started offering video annotations after Google acquired Omnisio but only (so far) gives the video uploader a way to add annotations to the video, so it’s not (yet?) a social annotation tool.
• Viddler, on the other hand, offer time-stamped comments and tagging, which are displayed along the video timeline and (by default) pop up at the appropriate time.

Playing the backchannel

• CurrentTV recently partnered with Twitter to display relevant Twitter updates live on-screen. Discuss the presidential debates while watching it (using Twitter tags) and have your comment displayed on TV.

• MTV’s Backchannel takes a different approach to annotating episodes of The Hills, turning the process of ‘tagging’ and ‘clicking’, to endorse a tag, into a game. Playing Backchannel won’t (as far as I can tell) stream the show to you, you just play in the browser while you’re watching the show at the same time.

Live chat

• When I think of live chat around TV, I think of Joost. Joost’s ‘channel chat’ has been overhauled a couple of times since the early days (I seem to remember it being initially based on IRC, then in 2007 they announced a partnership with Meebo) and more recently it seems to have gone away completely since they moved to Flash (or am I missing it?).

• BanterTV combines iPlayer simulcast embeds with real-time chat.

• The Electric Sheep Company’s WebFlock provides features for social viewing including
  

  a visually immersive environment for social interaction, media consumption and game play

• Lycos Cinema is “is Synchronized Movie Watching” (complete with a frankly horrible introductory video) and invites you to
  

  Watch thousands of movies and tv shows with your friends and chat live while you watch.

• What about the BBC? Anthony Rose recently announced some prototype work with Microsoft, in which iPlayer was hooked up to Windows Live Mesh. This was announced recently at Microsoft’s Professional Developer’s Conference and blogged in more detail by Microsoft’s Marc Holmes. Strategic, or experiment? You decide.

Of all of them, I find the asychronous chat using comments in the timeline on Viddler, and the game-playing elements of MTV’s Backchannel to be the most interesting. There must be lots of examples I’ve missed, but it’s an area I’ll continue to watch with interest.

TiVo, Dominos: Broadband Never Tasted So Good

Thanks that Channel Wire for this post on TV finally getting sueful! TiVo, Dominos: Broadband Never Tasted So Good

November 17, 2008

When the moon hits your eye with a big pizza pie, thank TiVo and Dominos. Beginning today, TiVo subscribers can order pies for delivery or pick-up from the pizza maker.

Hungry viewers can order pizza when they see a Dominos ad on TiVo and click "I want that" through their remote. TiVo subscribers will be able to set-up a user name and password on Dominos.com and each time they use their TiVo remote to place an order, they can log-in via their account number.

Through the TiVo/Dominos interactive system, subscribers can also create a custom pizza from television and select types of crusts, toppings and sauces. Users can also track pizza delivery timing. The companies promise that pies will be delivered in 30 minutes. The new service is free and payable in cash upon pizza delivery.

The new service gives new meaning to the term couch potato, and in fact, the companies' marketing executives refer to the service as "couch commerce."

"Joining forces with Domino's Pizza creates an effective marketing and commerce tool for Domino's while enhancing and further distinguishing TiVo as the ultimate way to watch TV with a closed-loop advertising experience," said Karen Bressner, Tivo's senior vice president of advertising sales, said in a statement.

Or, as Bressner put it, the deal is an "advertising solution as commercial avoidance continues to increase."

So, get the door, get the scale, its Dominos

TV+Social Network=?

Thanks WSJ for this article on how the bastion of 1.0, the TV, is moving into the world 2.0

New television ventures promise to bring the community-building features of the Web into the living room

Our television set is about to become a lot friendlier.

Seen by many as a one-way medium where the content comes through but nothing goes back, the TV generally goes off and the computer goes on when people want to connect and communicate with others.

But now, some of the tools that allow people to build communities and socialize on Internet sites like MySpace and Facebook are making their way to the living room.

TV Takes a Cue From the Web

Ever wish your television talked back? Well now it does and more. Stacey Delo talks to WSJ's Christopher Lawton about the new ways people are using their TV to be social. (Oct. 24)

The movement was pioneered in part by videogame-console makers such as Microsoft Corp. as a way to connect hard-core gamers for competitive matches, and it is gaining momentum as those companies and others seek to entice a broader audience to chat with friends, share photos and recommend movies and music over their television screens.

Analysts say social networking has the potential to play a key role in shaping what people watch and do on the biggest screen in their homes. They say that eventually could pay off -- perhaps in terms of subscription revenue or advertising -- for the companies involved in these mostly nascent ventures, as efforts to marry the Internet and the TV gain traction.

"The TV set is evolving and content itself is evolving," says Michael Gartenberg, an analyst in the research division of Darien, Conn.-based Jupitermedia Corp. Understanding what friends are watching or doing on their TV screens "has to have a tremendous amount of value," he says.

The Journal Report

• See the complete Technology report.

Seeking Connections

Gamers have been able to message and befriend each other through the TV since 2002, when Microsoft launched Xbox Live, the gaming and entertainment service that allows Xbox-console owners to connect to the Internet and compete against each other in multiplayer games. More than 60% of Xbox owners subscribe to Live, according to Microsoft, some paying a $50 annual fee for a premium version of the service.

Right now, the only way to chat with fellow subscribers is to create a game session and invite them in. Some users create game matches for the sole purpose of chatting, showing that for many, the social experience is just as important as the game, says Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox Live.

The Redmond, Wash., company is redesigning Xbox Live to add more social-networking features. The idea is to give subscribers more of the social connections they crave, while broadening the appeal of the Xbox console beyond the hard-core gaming community.

Jason Schneider

The new version, due out Nov. 19, will include a chat feature in which groups of as many as eight people will be able to communicate with each other via headsets, regardless of what they are doing. Members also will be able to share photos and create unique graphic images of themselves, called avatars, that can interact with other subscribers' avatars in a virtual community.

Eric Word, a recent high-school graduate in Columbus, Ohio, says he is looking forward to the new Xbox Live because he won't have to enter game sessions to talk to friends. "Sometimes I don't get in the mood to play, but I still want to talk to these people and see how their day is going," says the 18-year-old Mr. Word.

Sony Corp., too, is preparing to launch a virtual-community service for its competing PlayStation 3 videogame system. The free service will allow players to create avatars, interact with others in a virtual world and chat through the game console.

The company says it plans to launch the service, called Home, this fall, though it declined to be more specific.

A Broader Audience
TAG Networks Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., is trying to expand social networking based on gaming beyond videogame consoles to a much broader cable-television audience.

The firm owns a subscription-based games-on-demand TV network that allows people to use their remote controls and cable boxes to connect and play with other casual gamers. According to founder and Chief Executive Sangita Verma, the setup is simple: Gamers create profiles, compete for high scores in their area and match up for multiplayer games. Next year, the channel will introduce a more formal social network with buddy lists, messaging and other ways to connect multiple players.

"Gamers today expect to be able to communicate and play against other people," says Ms. Verma. "I think there is a paradigm shift in the way people think about games and play games."

TAG TV has more than 200,000 subscribers in Hawaii and is being tested with cable companies in Texas and Alabama.

Movie studios and software firms also are helping to bring social networking into the living room.

Studios such as Walt Disney Co., Sony Pictures and Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures are adding features to Blu-ray movie discs that allow people with certain Blu-ray DVD players to interact while watching movies. Disney's recent release of "Sleeping Beauty," for example, includes a "movie chat" feature in which friends watching the movie simultaneously from different locations can exchange messages on their TV screens with Internet-connected devices such as iPhones or BlackBerrys.

New York software firm Boxee, meanwhile, has incorporated social-networking features into a media-player application designed to be used with a remote control and viewed on a large screen, like that of a TV connected to a PC.

The application, which can be downloaded free, offers users a single interface through which to organize and play media content such as videos, movies, music and photos from their PCs or the Internet. It also allows users to sit in front of their TV screens and, via remote control, recommend movies, music and other content to Boxee users they have befriended. They can see in real time what songs those friends are listening to or the movies or TV shows they are watching by monitoring a so-called media-activity feed appearing on their screens.

For piracy reasons, Boxee's software stops short of allowing people to share content with friends. But Dave Mathews, vice president of product development, says that even if a person is watching a pirated copy of a movie or TV show and recommends it to friends, the software will send the recommendation and tell the friends where they can stream the content legally.

Versions of Boxee's software for Apple Inc.'s Macintosh computers and for PCs based on the Linux operating system are in testing. A version for PCs running the Windows operating system is due out by the end of the year.

Robert Basil, an information-systems manager in Tempe, Ariz., has been testing Boxee on a Mac Mini connected to his flat-panel TV for several weeks. He says he likes Boxee because he prefers media recommendations from friends rather than professional reviewers.

"Nobody knows what you like better than your friends," says the 41-year-old.

—Mr. Lawton is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau.

Write to Christopher Lawton at christopher.lawton@wsj.com

Digital technologies that will change how you market

By Matthew Klein thanks to iMediaConnection for helpful listings on tomorrow's technologies.

We know that tomorrow's media will be digitally integrated, but what will that media entail? Get the inside view on the next wave of digital media opportunities.

Steve Ballmer predicts that in 2015, there will be no media that is not IP-enabled. In other words, 10 years down the road, there will be no distinction between "traditional" and "digital" when it comes to media.

In this future world, I predict that much of the planning of media will remain the same. There will still be a human side to the equation of planning and negotiation. It is the stewardship that will evolve beyond the tear sheet reporting of traditional media and into the action and behavior tracking of the digital media today.

Print goes digital

Many people in the media believe they are currently witnessing the swan song of the newspaper industry. However, the combination of the advancements in e-paper and the proliferation of ubiquitous Wi-Fi leads me to believe that the newspaper industry will experience a resurgence -- once the term "paper" is redefined through electronics, that is.

Consider that major companies such as LG Phillips, Bridgestone (QR-LPD), Fujitsu (Clerk Browser and Fabric PC), Siemens (color flexible displays for packaging), Samsung (carbon nanotube based e-paper) and even Hearst (FirstPaper) are all moving rapidly towards the development of thin, LCD screens that will one day be flexible enough to roll into one's back pocket. While on the morning commute, people will consume news from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times or the The Chicago Tribune with the click of a button, all wirelessly transmitted via ubiquitous Wi-Fi networks.

Outdoors gets more interactive

The future of outdoor advertising will also be digital, and thus interactive, according to a presentation, which profiles technology from a company called Catchyoo. Catchyoo is in the "interactive out of home" space, like Reactrix and Bubbloo. It provides not only outdoor interactivity products, but back-office scheduling and remote management software that allows for mass distribution to multiple locations simultaneously. This creates a new media business model for outdoor advertising akin to the way we distribute ads on the web today.

Another example of the digital shift in outdoor comes from Inwindow Outdoor and their Interactive Storescapes. With the ability for people to interact with the outdoor advertisement via motion, speech or Bluetooth, the day will come when media companies are being asked to report on the engagement time, downloads or views generated by their outdoor media buy.

Radio plays

Now, consider the evolution of radio. You've probably seen the Ford Sync commercials profiling technology that is powered by Microsoft Auto. Ford Sync is a voice-activated mobile phone and digital music system for your car. With digital music, the technology is currently taking advantage of what is essentially an in-dash MP3 player or MP3 player plug-in. But with interactive radio, there may come a day that you get into your car and plug a memory card into the dash of your vehicle. As you are driving along, you hear a song you like, but the artist is not announced. With two-way digital radio (check out U.S. Patent # 6990312) and the interactive voice response capabilities that you find in Ford Sync and OnStar, you may simply say "song information" and your radio will read the metadata (yes, as I said in my last article, the word "geek" will be applied to media of the future like never before) from the digital broadcast signal and tell you the artist, title and album. You then say "bookmark" and this information is stored on your SD card for later retrieval.

Translate this capability into the advertising world and you get a scenario much like online marketing today. A commercial comes on the radio, which may be behaviorally, contextually or geographically targeted, and you say "bookmark" because you want to check out the service or product at a later time. The advertising information is stored on your memory card and you continue on your day. Later, you plug your memory card into your home media hub (today's IP-enabled game console) and the day's requested follow-ups are presented in some sort of browse-able format. If we continue the trend we are on today, the advertisement was served via an ad-server with digital radio ad-serving capabilities, so the media company that placed the ad has the ability to report on the number of "listenings," "bookmarks" and "conversions" for a given spot. Forgive the "listening" and "bookmarks" metric term assumptions -- these are to be figured out by the IABs and Web Analytics Associations of the world at a later date.

The new TV

Television has been the medium that is most often referenced when discussing the convergence of IP-based technology and media. Given the technical and adoption hurdles required to implement the digital outdoor, digital print and digital radio visions previously mentioned, interactive TV is also the nearest to becoming a reality.

Cox Communications, Comcast and Time Warner are already experimenting with nascent forms of this in key markets, and are expected to begin implementing targeted, on-demand and personalized forms of advertising through their systems in 2010. Personal TV: The Reinvention of Television is a great whitepaper from Forrester on this topic. Needless to say, one day television advertising will also be targeted, interactive and measurable.

With this future vision in mind, it is clear to see that web standards are becoming advertising standards. The language of online media marketing today is the language of the media marketing of tomorrow.

In my last iMedia article, I discussed how crucial it is that the major components of digital media marketing (online display, email, organic and paid search, mobile and web analytics) must be integrated. It is equally crucial that the digital and the traditional media be planned and managed in an integrated fashion. Today we recognize this because of scenarios such as measuring the traffic of a print or TV ad based on a special URL, ensuring that our paid search is aligned with our offline advertising or measuring the cross-media effectiveness of our whole campaign. But it is even more crucial that traditional and digital is integrated because entrepreneurs and engineers are working diligently to ensure that tomorrow's media will all be digitally enabled.

A brand new day

Target in the US have responded to the current economic climate with their new TV spot entitled 'a brand new day'. Tapping into ideas of new ways to save it shows a petrol bowser racking up the dollars as a business man cycles to work with the super 'the new commute', a dad cutting his kids hair retailing a shaver, a woman using her lounge as a gym retailing the swiss ball. A nice retail ad that heros Target and envokes fun at a time when consumers are having to tighten their belts.

Mobile -- the perfect direct medium?

Thanks IDM Institute

Robert Thurner M IDM, Commercial Director of mobile agency Incentivated, explores how mobiles could revolutionise direct marketing. The first mobile phones were nicknamed ‘bricks’ because they were huge and unwieldy, with big handsets attached to briefcase-sized battery packs.

But now, the latest mobiles are barely bigger than a credit card, and the mobile has become the one item that the majority of us say we cannot do without – and the first item we would grab if our houses were on fire.

Our mobiles are always on us, and usually on. That makes mobile the perfect medium for marketers.

Since the mid 1990s, the reduction in size and cost of mobile phone handsets has led to penetration levels of almost 90% across Europe.

According to statistics from Ofcom, by the end of 2007, there were almost 74 million mobile connections serving a population of 60 million in the UK, an increase of 3.7 million connections since the end of 2006. The total number of mobile connections increased by 48 per cent in the five years from 2002.

Text explosion

In the UK, nearly 60 billion text messages were sent in 2007 -- an increase of 36 per cent since 2006 and up by 234 per cent since 2002, when UK mobile users sent 17 billion texts. The average mobile phone user sent 67 texts per month from each mobile, compared to 53 texts per month in 2006.

The majority of children have access to the internet and most have a mobile phone but they use them in different ways. Boys aged eight to 11 are twice as likely to use the internet every day than girls of the same age (45 per cent compared to 22 per cent).

However, girls aged 12 to 15 are more likely to use a mobile phone than boys of the same age (74 per cent compared to 65 per cent).

Instant messaging is more popular than email among children, with 62 per cent of 12 to 15 year old sending an instant message, compared with 43 per cent of them sending an email. Adults prefer to email – 80 per cent of adults sent an email compared to 34 per cent who used instant messaging.

Is email failing?

Yet according to the IAB, only 25% of emails are opened: the remainder are either filtered out by anti-spam and anti-virus software, or get deleted. By contrast, 95% of SMS are opened, reflecting the expectation by consumers that those contacting them by text have their consent to do so.

Long may this practice continue!

The mobile is a highly personal device, and brands should earn the right to be there by ensuring customers opt-in to receive branding or customer service messages. The mobile industry has established best practice guidelines which should be followed closely.

The ubiquity of the mobile phone has led to a revolution in mobile interactivity. For organisations in general and marketers in particular, it offers the chance to interact with their customers efficiently and regardless of place or time.

Mobile exciting medium

That creates exciting new opportunities in Mobile Marketing (for customer acquisition), Mobile Customer Service (for customer retention, CRM and loyalty) and Mobile Commerce (for transaction purposes).

For direct marketers, the benefits should be obvious. The mobile phone is the only media that consumers will have with them at all times; it is a superb channel for interactivity, providing an instant response path via voice call, SMS or engagement with a WAPsite (mobile internet site).

Personalised, social, measurable

Mobile is a highly personalised communication channel: one handset has only one user, which makes mobile a powerful targeting medium.

And, for many users, it is a social medium, one which allows files, photos, videos, websites and music to be shared.

Plus it can be measured, and it works extremely well in partnership with other marketing media.

Used responsibly, and with a message which makes the most of the medium and is properly targeted, mobile can deliver very impressive results.

Below, I’m going to discuss a couple of examples of how mobile can be used for direct marketing.

Bookstart free books
Booktrust, the independent charity that encourages people to read, used mobile as part of its latest Bookstart campaign to distribute 80,000 free books to parents of young children.

A DRTV campaign was developed by Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw in partnership with mobile agency Incentivated. Media planning was by Trinity Communications and media buying by Manning Gottlieb OMD.

The TV campaign delivered 1,236 TV spots throughout the day across 34 terrestrial and digital channels for one month. The Bookstart TV ads featured a mobile call-to-action for viewers to request a free book by texting BOOK, their home number and postcode to 80800.

View the Bookstart DRTV.

Bookstart’s target audience of parents and carers were encouraged to respond to the ads by texting free from their mobiles. The book was then sent, post free.

Text messaging was chosen as the sole response mechanism for ordering books because Trinity Communications’ research established that the primary audience had limited online access but high mobile telephone ownership.

Strong response

The campaign generated 79,415 texts, which represents 8 per cent of the estimated one million UK households with children aged three and four. Each TV ad generated, on average, 64 texts.

This campaign demonstrates that mobile can provide an immediate response mechanism for advertising, whether using above or below the line channels, while offering brands true accountability.

Text messages are time and date stamped, which means we were able to correlate responses with the TV spots broadcast.

Terminate a mate
Virgin 1 was looking for a way to promote the UK launch of the TV series ‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’.

The series is based on the Terminator movie trilogy. In the US, it was a smash hit, pulling in over 18 million viewers and becoming the highest-rated scripted show on Fox for eight years.

For the UK launch in February 2008, Incentivated and digital agency 20:20 created a ground-breaking viral campaign which used location-based mobile technology and merged in user-input names and mobile numbers to create a personalised video – we believe this was the first time this has ever been done.

A 10-day teaser campaign using TV, outdoor, print, viral and ambient marketing drove people to www.terminate-a-mate.com and www.terminate-a-mate.mobi, where they could enter a friend's name and mobile details.

Personalised mobile video

A specially created personalised video simulating a Terminator hacking into their mobile phone to locate them and hunt them down was then sent.

We made sure there were mechanisms in place to protect privacy and defuse concerns over mobiles being used to track people. Participants who entered details of a friend’s mobile also had to give their own phone number, and an SMS message checking their details was sent. The Termination only went ahead if the sender confirmed they wanted it to.

Effectively, the sender ‘opts in’ their target to receive the geo-coded message.

Personal protection

Once a site visitor inputs a friend's mobile number to target them for “termination,” the friend is then sent an SMS warning them that Terminators are nearby. If they reply and give permission for their location to be shared with the network, they receive a link to a made-for-mobile video. The recipient's current location is highlighted within the video via an integrated mobile map in real time.

Mobile numbers are only used for the purposes of the promotion, and users are assured that their details will not be kept on file for future marketing.

A sample of the Terminate-a-Mate mobile video can be viewed on YouTube

Conclusion
Mobile can deliver enormous impact, and works best when integrated with other media. It is the only truly personal communications channel there is, which is both an advantage and a potential disadvantage.

The advantage is that people are always contactable and can respond instantly – assuming you deliver a compelling, relevant and timely marketing message. The disadvantage is that consumers can see mobile marketing messages as extremely intrusive.

It is up to marketers and their advisers to make sure that they are using mobile properly and effectively.

Robert Thurner M IDM is Commercial Director of Incentivated, and will be delivering the mobile session at the IDM Academy at ad:tech on September 24.

He also presents on mobile at the IDM Diploma and CPD courses at the IDM in Teddington.

Video Content Booming

Thanks to Digital Media for this article on how online video is growing in popularity so rapidly its now legitimately competing with regular TV viewing.

Video Content Booming

Online and mobile video consumption is moving to mainstream usage patterns with around a quarter of the Australian population watching online video two or more hours a week.

According to the Consumer Video Insights research report from Pure Profile and Venture One, digital video viewing is no longer the domain of just early-adopters, with 15% of Australians watching online content on their main “television” screen.

The 18 to 24 demographic continues to lead the trend as the heaviest consumers of online video, with 30% averaging 2-4 hours per week. 62% of that segment lists music videos and clips as the content most watched followed by news, comedy, sport and TV shows.

Other content such as webcams, user-generated content and short films are also being watched, but there is no willingness to pay a premium.

The research also indicates a number of significant growth areas, particularly in mobile content as more consumers take up premium content and data packs.

Claudia Sagripanti, VentureOne director, said the Consumer Video Insights report highlights the importance of online and mobile video as a vehicle for connecting and interacting with younger demographics and increasingly the broader Australian population. But warned: “Most consumers accept the advertising supported quid pro quo but will not stomach a forced approach.” Meanwhile, consumers are increasingly turning to their mobile phones for information such as maps, TV listings and restaurant and café guides in addition to traditional services such as news, sport and weather, a survey by the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association has revealed.

Demand for location-based services such as maps on mobile phones has increased by 347% over the past year, while interest in lifestyle information has rocketed by 174%, with television listings up 93%, according to the fourth Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index.

The online survey of 2000 Australians also found that 33% of respondents had purchased mobile content in the last 12 months, down on last year.

However, the number of units bought has risen with purchases of SMS alerts and games up 50%.

The top three types of content bought by mobile phone users over the past 12 months were games 43%, true tones 42% and wallpapers 33%.

The most popular content demanded by consumers in the future is digital music downloads 30%, games 27% and wallpapers 25%. Strong demanded is also expected for maps 31%, news 29% and weather 28%.

Commenting on the survey, Dr Marisa Maio Mackay, director of Research m.Net Corporation, which sponsored the survey along with Ideal Interfaces said:

“This survey indicates clear popular growth areas, such as the way that the content is purchased and shared amongst mobile users especially games, ringtones and wallpapers indicating a growing market and uptake of 3G services.” Over half of those questioned said they did not have a 3G phone, with a further 20% saying they didn¹t know if their phone was 3G.

“The mobile sector is on the cusp of an extremely exciting 12 to 18 months and our results show the growing uptake and interest in mobile technology.

We have reached a point where you are going to go beyond a group of high level users and early-adopters to the masses,” Maio Mackay added.

Visits to social networking and community service sites is still in its early stages according to the report, with 16% of respondents using their phones for this purpose with Facebook, MySpace and MSN Messenger the most popular sites.

Almost all Australian mobile phone users are creating content on their devices, with 96% having taken a photo on their phone.

Some 33% of phone users have created other content. Of those, over 70% had also created videos or music and 50% are sharing that content with MMS (63%) being the most used channel, closely followed by Bluetooth (61%).

The use of Bluetooth demonstrates a preference by consumers to avoid incurring data costs from their carrier when they share content. 55% of respondents had used content on their phones created by others, with 90% viewing photos. Those under 25 years were more likely to have created content to share with others.

http://www.digital-media.net.au/Article/Video-content-booming/203511.aspx

Capitalizing on Online Video's Strengths

Medium Has Yet to Pan Out Financially, but There May Be a Solution
Thanks to David Carson and AdAge

Online video now boasts a bigger audience than cable television, but its $1 billion in ad dollars is a fraction of the $70 billion in broadcast wealth many assumed would be redistributed. When will online video be the behemoth business everyone always crows about? Maybe when we quit treating its biggest strength as a weakness.

Old model won't fit
You see, online video is not TV. Sorry to state the obvious, but even though we all know it's a very different medium, we are trying to force-fit it with a television ad model. Publishers are trying to divert TV ad dollars to online video platforms and feel the need to use the same language and formats as TV. They do this thinking it will help them bridge the knowledge gap and convince TV media buyers to shift their dollars.

It's a critical error. The two media are so fundamentally different that making comparisons in format and language will eventually stunt the growth and impact of online video for creators and marketers alike.

Let me make a comparison. Imagine if Google's search business didn't include AdSense but marketers paid a CPM or flat fee to be listed within search results -- just like the Yellow Pages, or a newspaper. This does two things. First, it makes the search results unusable to users because it's placing paid-for hits above anything more relevant. Second, because the search is now not as useful, its future audience potential diminishes. We would have never experienced the incredible benefit that Google eventually provided to users and marketers. They could have easily gone down this road, but they didn't. They knew their medium was fundamentally different from print and used a new ad model that suited it better.

What's the big diff?
So what are the fundamental differences between TV and online video -- and what is the model?

People use them differently. TV attracts watchers, while online video attracts users. When I mention this to people, they always take issue with it. They say that people are, at the end of day, watching video. And I counter that just because TV and online video use moving images doesn't mean they're the same. It's like comparing Google to a magazine, or a newspaper: The fact that they all use words and paragraphs does make them similar in some ways, but they are obviously not the same. One major difference is how they're used.

The internet's inherent strength is as a noisy feedback machine where billions of people can provide input, share, embed, create and sculpt their own video experiences. They become part of the experience, not simply observers -- not unlike the difference between TV and video games. You don't watch video games, you play them.

Televised video has different levels of quality, and so does online video. In each case, the quality is largely in the eye of the beholder, and with online video, the way that the clips are used adds another dimension for evaluation. Nonetheless, though I have seen expensive, professional video get smoked by a homemade video of a guy dancing at a high-school talent show, an advertiser is still more likely to prefer the expensive professional video than the one (er, many) that people actually watch, share, embed and comment on.

So why are we treating this inherent strength of the medium as a weakness? Even worse, why are we blindly accepting that the best way to build online-video markets is by applying an ad model from a completely different medium?

Overlooking the real strength
Because that's where marketers put their money. They see video on new boxes and think, "Hey, it's another place to put my video" and miss out on the real strength of the medium. Even worse, online-video companies feed this mentality by trying to showcase what the marketers think they want -- "quality content" -- and dismiss the entire feedback system that tells them what the users are actually doing.

People are not saying, "Gee, I like the idea of video on the Internet, but I'm not going to spend time with it until there is more quality content." The exact opposite is happening. Usage keeps growing as users find, consume, comment on, create and share videos by the billions. There is a value gap. The gap is between what people are actually doing and what advertisers think people should be watching. These two things are simply out of synch, and until we get them aligned, the market will putter along, with many lost opportunities.

People are moving to this new medium with or without the marketers' involvement -- that much is clear. The questions remaining to be answered are whether marketers will see the fundamental value and exploit it, and whether online-video companies will step up to the plate to get them there.

Full article at:
http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=130640

TV's Future Looks Like Web's Present

Thanks Adweek: Forrester says targeted ads and a portal-like menu of options are coming to your set

Aug 27, 2008 -By Brian Morrissey

Forrester: The shift will help TV remain the dominant advertising medium.

NEW YORK TV advertising is poised to change dramatically over the next decade, embracing the kind of targeting and user control already common on the Web, according to a new report by Forrester Research.

Forrester lays out a decade-long evolution that will ultimately result in most programming delivered on-demand with targeted ad messages based on location and behavior, along with community functions.

This "Personal TV," as Forrester calls it, would also deliver a Web-like experience for consumers, with a portal-like menu of programming options and search functions.

Forrester sees this shift giving TV an opportunity to remain the dominant ad medium it is today. While a personalized offering would seem geared toward further audience fragmentation, Forrester anticipates systems that would allow advertisers to reach mass audiences in a targeted manner. What's more, cable companies, with subscribers' billing histories, know more about users than Web companies. Ultimately, TV will work like the Web, enabling viewers to interact with ads up to the point of purchase.

"The players here are the people who own the popular programs and then the distributors who have digital systems capable of serving programs into set top boxes," said David Graves, the report's author.

That hasn't stopped Web giants such as Google and Microsoft from trying to break into the medium and extend their reach across TV advertising. Google is placing ads through Echostar's Dish Network and Microsoft has plans to build an ad network after buying Navic Networks.

In the near term, Forrester expects experimentation in video on-demand offerings by cable companies, like CBS's CSI on Comcast that includes ads that cannot be skipped.

Forrester predicts that in 2010, targeting and on-demand programming systems will be up and running, before the big industry-wide shift takes place from 2012-18.

What's taken so long? Forrester spreads the blame across the TV landscape. Cable companies didn't build-out video on-demand as an ad-supported platform, networks protected the lucrative status quo and agencies didn't push for innovation.

Fox Mobiseries

Fox buys rights to Cell mobiseries

Posted by Teresa von Fuchs, on MobileCrunch.

Fox International, in its quest to expand its mobile content offerings, has bought the rights to Mobstar’s made-for-mobile series Cell.

First aired in the UK on O2, Cell consists of 20 two-minute ‘mobisodes’ about a man locked in prison with a mobile phone and a mystery caller. The show is produced by Endemol and was originally played in the U.S. on Sony’s crackle.com.

Fox plans to broadcast the mobisodes on a UK-only mobile channel, thecell.tv; Fox also has plans for more UK-only mobile sites coming in the fall.

Mobile Entertainment

Andriod - the OS for everything?

Thanks Eric from Techcrunch for this interesting perspective on android and what it could become

As the world waits for the first Android phone to appear in the wild (from T-Mobile), questions are being raised again about whether Google’s Android ambitions will stop at cell phones. In a speculative, but well-thought-out piece, VentureBeat’s Eric Eldon reports:

Industry sources tell us that although Android will indeed start as a mobile OS, Google intends to expand it to be a sort of universal operating system that will span set-top boxes for televisions, mp3 players and other communication and media devices and services.

If what Eldon is hearing is true, that means that Android could one day spread beyond mobile phones and set-top boxes to a multiplicity of devices. After all, if we are moving towards an Internet of things, those things will need an operating system. In this case, however, the operating system will reside partially in the cloud, and applications written on Google’s App Engine, for instance, will work across devices and the Web.

That is easier said than done, and Android will have a hard enough time simply establishing itself on mobile phones. But the more devices Android apps can work across, the more appealing it will be to developers and startups.

And for at least one other device, it does make sense. In fact, I’ve been hearing similar rumors in regards to a Google set-top-box project that I first caught wind of last year. As far as I know, that project is still alive and is very Android-like in its aspirations. As I wrote in my post in November, 2007:

If creating applications for set-top boxes was more like creating applications for the Web, we’d be able to do a lot more things with our TVs—especially if those set-top boxes were also connected to the Web. Want instant messaging and caller ID on your TV? No problem. Want customized information widgets for the TV that scroll breaking news, weather, sports scores or stock quotes from sources you choose in your own ticker at the bottom of the screen? No problem. Want to turn that annoying ticker off? No problem. Want to control the camera angles on that basketball game? No problem. Want to add the live video stream from your friend’s cell phone who is at the game? No problem. Want to create your own video mashup of fight scenes from various movies that you can edit right on your TV and share with others on their TVs? No problem.

What other devices could Android conquer?

Here's another techcrunch post on T-Mobile in Germany being the first to market with an android handset

Why the Internet Enhances TV Advertising

Thanks to AdAge and David F. Poltrack for this article.

Over the past few years, we've gotten accustomed to hearing how the internet was going to reduce TV viewing and how it's going to supplant TV as the primary advertising medium. Much to the surprise of the pundits, these expected outcomes have yet to take place. TV usage is actually up compared to the year 2000 and continues to increase despite the fact that people are spending more and more time online. And the TV market remains very healthy. Not even the impact of a crippling strike and a recessionary economy could keep the upfront broadcast TV market from registering year-to-year gains.

From where I sit, the internet as a marketing medium has enhanced, not diminished, the value of TV advertising for marketers.

Steps to making a purchase

To understand how this could be, let's step back to Marketing 101 and the Consumer Adoption Process -- a progression of stages that bring the consumer to purchase a product or service. The four basic stages describe the consumer as first becoming aware of the product, then interested in it, then desirous, and finally a purchaser.

Traditionally, TV advertising has been viewed as having its greatest influence in the early stages of the model, making the consumer aware of the product, creating interest in the product and, to a lesser extent, creating a desire. As the consumer moves through this process, the role of TV is diminished and supplemented by other marketing forces.

The role of the internet is more pronounced in the latter stages of the process. The interested consumer goes to the web to learn more about the product. When the consumer finds more information about it, his or her desire for it increases, and the information leads to an actual purchase.

The internet has significantly increased the efficiency of this process. The consumer's interest can be more quickly addressed, and the conversion of that consumer from an interested party to a purchaser can be expedited.

TV's signals still strong

This brings us back to the role of TV advertising.

If the internet has increased the efficiency of the process by which "aware" and "interested" consumers are converted to purchasers, then the value of each aware or interested consumer is that much greater. No other medium can rival TV in developing awareness of a product, service or product feature.

So, if the internet has increased the rate of conversion of aware and interested consumers into purchasers, then TV's ability to produce aware and interested consumers has an even greater value to the marketer.

Here's some real data from a study we just conducted involving new cars.

We began by asking our respondents which of 11 new car models they recognize. On average 35% were aware of each new car, with recognition ranging from 18% to 68%. Approximately 11% of our respondents said they were considering purchasing a new car in the next year. The average awareness of the 11 new cars by these potential purchasers was 43%, ranging from 18% to 69%.

When asked about the source of their awareness of these cars, over half of both the total sample (57%) selected TV advertising. The second most mentioned source, magazines in every case, was only noted by less than one-fifth of the total respondents (17%). The choices encompassed all of the major media, including magazines and the internet, as well as "friends and/or family."

We next asked our respondents if they had sought out information about any of these cars. Among those aware of each car, an average of 10% sought out information about that car. As you would expect, the percentage was significantly higher for those in the market for a car, 24%, more than double.

Going online for info

Just as TV dominated the awareness measure, the internet dominated as a source of sought-after information. Just under half of the total sample (43%) cited the internet as a place where they went for this information, more than double the second source, the dealer (21%).

We see that the internet in the space of about a decade has become the primary source of information in this key category. There is no question that having this new resource available for consumers has increased the efficiency of converting an aware consumer into a purchaser, which places a higher value on each aware consumer. That, in turn, places a higher value on TV advertising as the leading producer of aware consumers.

Many commentators on the subject of the rise of the internet as an advertising medium have reported that marketers have been shifting money from TV advertising into internet advertising. No doubt, on a short-term basis, this has happened. Based on the research I just presented, it is the last thing they should be doing. If an effective internet marketing program increases the rate of conversion of aware consumers into purchasers, then you want to increase, not decrease, the number of aware consumers. Reducing the investment in TV advertising, the primary generator of awareness, undermines the value of the internet effort.

The awareness levels recorded by the various new cars in our survey demonstrate that even the biggest advertisers do not achieve universal awareness with their campaigns. Even brands like Coca-Cola and McDonald's, which have universal brand recognition, do not reach this level of awareness for individual campaigns covering specific features, promotional programs or product line extensions.

The transfer of advertising dollars from TV budgets to the internet to develop a viable internet marketing presence was a short-term solution driven more by expediency than sound marketing strategy. As the measured results from these early programs have come in, more and more marketers are realizing the complementary relationship of a strong TV campaign and a strong internet program. These marketers are holding steady or building up their TV campaigns in conjunction with the expansion of their internet marketing programs. They are funding these efforts either through the transfer of funds from less productive areas or from incremental sales.

Coordinate your messages

For the CMO, this means coordinating the messaging, content and timing of TV and internet components of the marketing plan. Marketers should take advantage of the high level of engagement that people have with their favorite television programs by combining sponsorship of these programs on TV with sponsorship of them online. More and more viewers of popular series are going online to follow these series. Sponsorship of the online site featuring these programs allows the advertiser to repeat their message to the viewer in an environment where people can be directed to the marketer's website. All of the networks are now offering these cross-platform opportunities.

Of course, marketers should also integrate an invitation to visit their websites directly into their TV commercials.

Smart marketers recognize this nexus between TV and the internet and are increasing their efforts in both media -- not trading off one against the other.

TiVo & Amaon team up

In the words of Simon; a future business model for TV. This article is from the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/technology/22tivo.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin

TiVo and Amazon Team Up

By BRAD STONE

SAN FRANCISCO — TiVo, the Silicon Valley company that introduced millions to the joy of skipping television commercials, is trying to crack a decades-old media dream. It wants to turn the television remote control into a tool for buying the products being advertised and promoted on commercials and talk shows.

The company, based in Alviso, Calif., will introduce a “product purchase” feature on Tuesday in partnership with the Internet retailer Amazon.com. Owners of TiVo video recorders will see, in TiVo’s various onscreen menus, links to buy products like CDs, DVDs and books that guests are promoting on talk shows like “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “The Late Show With David Letterman” and “The Daily Show.”

In the months ahead, TiVo plans to begin offering this feature to advertisers and programmers, so that the chance to buy products and have them delivered will be presented to viewers during commercials and even alongside product placements during live shows.

The move highlights TiVo’s attempt to shift from being a creator of set-top boxes, competing with copycat devices, to being an advertising innovator that is trying to develop advertising technologies for the television industry.

“Just a few years ago, we were viewed with great paranoia as the disruptor,” said Thomas S. Rogers, chief executive of TiVo. “Our goal now is to work with the media industry to come up with ways to resist the downward pressure of less advertising viewing and create a way for advertising on TV to become more effective, more engaging and closer to the sale.”

“What we are trying to do is to create all the underpinnings of a future business model for television,” he said.

For years, interactive advertising on television has been characterized by risky experiments and high-profile failures. Most famously, Time Warner took a shot at the concept with its pioneering but expensive Qube box trial in Ohio in the late 1970s.

One problem with all previous experiments in this area, Mr. Rogers said, was that buying a product through the television took the viewer out of the experience they had actually settled in for — watching a program.

But on TiVo, if a viewer chooses to buy an advertised item during a broadcast, TiVo records the rest of the program so the viewer can easily return to it after the purchase. TiVo users will also be able to save their intended purchases in their Amazon account and return to the site later to complete the transaction.

TiVo and Amazon, based in Seattle, have an existing relationship. Since last year, owners of broadband-connected TiVos have been able to download movies and televisions shows to their set-top boxes from Amazon’s digital video store, now called Amazon Video on Demand. The two companies have not disclosed the financial details of their newest deal, but in general Amazon’s affiliates get a 15 percent slice of a sale when a customer they referred makes a purchase on the site.

But the media world may not be so quick to jump at TiVo’s new buy-it-now feature. More than a decade after it altered the fundamental experience of watching television, TiVo’s base of users remains relatively small.

TiVo’s purchase feature “is a harbinger of what television ultimately should become,” said Timothy Hanlon, senior vice president for Denuo, the media futures division of the Publicis Groupe. “But TiVo is only in around four million plus homes. From a national advertising perspective, if it doesn’t get beyond that base it remains nothing more than a curiosity.”

TiVo knows that, which is why the company is trying to branch out of the set-top box business and into building software that it can license to much larger media companies. For the last three years, TiVo has been working with the cable operators Comcast and Cox to put its user-friendly software in their set-top boxes. Comcast has introduced its service in Boston, while Cox is still holding trials.

Mr. Rogers also said TiVo’s deal with Comcast includes a provision for TiVo to provide its interactive ad technology for the cable company’s other, non-TiVo digital video recorders. Though Mr. Rogers says “this is not our focus today,” becoming a broker for the next generation of interactive ads may be TiVo’s ultimate goal.

Possible customers for its interactive ad technology include the cable and satellite companies and their consortiums, like Project Canoe, a joint effort by six cable operators to create a technology platform to sell customized and interactive ads.

To publicize TiVo’s efforts at creating this new advertising model for television, Mr. Rogers is not above sowing a little fear about some of the grim trends in the business, which TiVo itself helped to unleash.

As DVRs get more popular, “the majority of commercials in home will be fast-forwarded through,” he said. “It is critical that there be a form of advertising and a transactional solution that underpins the DVR, or the economics of television are going to be substantially undermined.”