PoliTech Spotlight: DVR Targeting

March, 20/06 - Hotline

No election cycle passes without some innovation becoming the latest "it." This year, it could be DVR/TiVO on demand advertising "Showcases."

If you don't have a TiVO or DVR, go buy one. And go to the "Showcases" menu and imagine scrolling through a list of TV ads.-- Since DVR advertising isn't bound by the same constraints as TV or radio, campaigns can run spots of up to 60 minutes and let viewers decide which messages they'll watch. Comcast has even established a clearly recognized "Election 2006" link, uniformly positioned in all 22 available markets.

Of course, not everyone can hold audiences beyond 60 seconds. It's going to take a unique campaign to break through before "it" goes mainstream. But as voters demand more context, one can see this medium growing. [AOIFE MCCARTHY]

When Digital Video Recorders hit the market, with TiVo leading the way, viewers for the first time had the option to skip every commercial, streamlining their television viewing and launching concern that this could mark the beginning of the end for standard television advertising. What is happening instead is that a new window in advertising has been opened, offering a new stage from which campaigns can launch their message. In this new medium it is not TiVo, but Comcast On Demand leading the way, courting political campaigns to advertise to DVR viewers and offering some attractive reasons why their market should not be missed. While there is little danger of DVR advertising posing a threat to the standard broadcast/cable buys, this could be for '08 what Podcasts were to '04.