TiVo Offers Ads on Demand

8.5.06 - MIT Advertising Lab

"TiVo will today launch Product Watch, a service offering on-demand ads to its subscribers. TiVo has signed up about 70 advertisers, including marketers such as Kraft Foods, Ford Motor, General Motors and IAC/InterActive's LendingTree, to participate in the service. TiVo announced plans for the service in November.

For the most part, the marketers won't run traditional 30-second TV commercials. Instead, they will offer longer ads that attempt to be more informative than typical commercials. Kraft, for instance, will offer 20 different cooking videos that will show such things as how to grill its Tombstone pizza, potato-salad basics, or how to create a cantaloupe-and-Jell-O dessert.

Similar ads already are available on video-on-demand services offered by cable operators such as Comcast.

To entice advertisers, TiVo will charge marketers only for viewers who download an ad -- an arrangement akin to the pay-per-click model in paid-search Internet advertising. The only other charge will be a setup fee when the advertiser first signs on."-- Wall Street Journal, see also press release