First there was mass mailings, then we had personalized mail, now its data mining for even greater targeting and….
…now all this is coming to a TV near you. I’m talking about Addressable Advertising in video, that is the ability to target different video ads to different households.
The pros are obvious, the ability to better target your ad by viewers demographics. The advertiser could simply do their own data mining and then provide the specific names for each ad to the cable company for broadcasting.
While Addressable Advertising exists today, it is not widely deployed, however Comcast expects to have the technology fully rolled out within 2 years. One company to watch that is right in the middle of this is Visible World who has been very active providing the necessary technology.
Advertiser sentiment is mixed, on one hand more effective targeting could generate superior results, however one would have to weigh that against the added cost of the additional spots.
"There’s so much potential for backlash here," says Peter Kim, who analyzes advertising for Forrester Research. Voters will ask: "Why did this candidate say this thing in primarily Hispanic households, versus this other thing in Caucasian households?" he says.
Soon your food could contain an RFID tag and the TV ad could present that meal’s dessert choices…all with the ability to order and have it delivered by pushing a button on your remote!