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Tim Hanlon heads up the new ventures and partnerships practice at Denuo, a Publicis Groupe company which describes itself as "a futures practice that anticipates and responds to trends in digital, interactive and evolving traditional marketing disciplines." He formerly headed up Starcom MediaVest’s "TV 2.0" practice, designed to help clients understand and take advantage of new television technologies, and is a former chairman of the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ (AAAA) Advanced Television Committee. Widely recognized–and frequently quoted in the media–as one of the US’s foremost experts on interactive and multiplatform advertising, he was the recipient of a 2004 [itvt] Award for Leadership in Interactive Television.

Hanlon recently spoke to [itvt]’s Tracy Swedlow about his work at Denuo, about the emergence of user-generated advertising, about the phenomenon he terms "media transparency" and how this phenomenon presents the advertising industry with both threats and opportunities, about his belief that internal politics are preventing cable companies from seizing a "robust opportunity for ad-supported VOD," about the significance of broadband video, and more.

[itvt]: Could you tell us a little about Denuo?

Hanlon: About four months ago, Publicis Groupe–the holding company–created a media futures consulting practice, which it called Denuo. Denuo in Latin means "anew" or "afresh." Effectively, the new practice represents a flank strategy for the future for Publicis Groupe. Meaning that while, on a good day, our media agencies, our creative agencies, our direct agencies, our promotion agencies, etc., are innovating as fast as anybody else, there’s a recognition that they may not necessarily be innovating fast enough, given how quickly the world is moving.

To a large extent, traditional agencies still see themselves as existing in a world where broadcast and cable television is, as it were, the ultimate expression of programming and advertising. But, as I’m sure you’re aware, the world is already bobbing and weaving into far more creative ways of video messaging. So, things like broadband video; peer-to-peer file sharing; mobile video; etc. And these emerging media not only parallel traditional linear television activity, but threaten to subsume it.

When you think about it, there’s already a whole group of people out there–it remains to be seen just how many, but this behavior is already there in a lot of households–who are eschewing the linear television mantra of "8:00, 7:00 Central," and who are using DVR and VOD to access what they want to watch when they want to watch it, and to avoid being forced to sit through linear commercial pods.

One thing to be aware of is that this business is no longer so much about television–at least if you think of television as the linear presentation of a program at a specific time and date. It’s about video. And it’s about video across multiple touchpoints. It’s about creating and distributing video, and allowing consumers access to video in multiple different forms.

[itvt]: What do you feel about the emergence of viewer-created advertising, which is a phenomenon that we’ve been tracking over the past few months?

Hanlon: Let’s burrow our way into that. My belief is that media is entering an age of transparency, much like other industries have gone through–the travel industry being probably the best example; and the real estate industry being another good example, with the emergence of companies like Zillow and Zip Realty.

So I think that the opaque box that media has been in until now–in terms of how programming gets made and distributed, how marketers get on the air, and how you buy and sell advertising–is becoming more and more transparent, in that there are many more ways for people to consume the programming that’s created by programmers, and the advertising that’s created by marketers. What I mean by that is, if I’m a viewer, why sit around and wait for a show on a network’s schedule when I can time-shift it via DVR, access it on-demand via VOD, download it off of iTunes, or grab it–legally or illegally–from a P2P file-sharing system? If I’m a programmer, why should I wait for a studio or network to green-light my project when I can create a blog, podcast or video and distribute directly to the world online and let my audience grow organically? If I’m an advertiser, why should I wait for traditional media properties to sell me ad "avails," when I can create my own programming and go directly to interested consumers?

As part of this transparency, consumers now have the ability to do two things that they have never really been able to do before. One is to reflect back to the programmers and/or the advertisers things that are either harmonized with or counter to the latters’ programming or advertising. So, if a consumer sees a program that they really, really love, they can now reflect back by creating an ode to that program–for example, through a blog or a podcast of their own, or even through a piece of video. Of course, this reflection process can also work negatively: if a program or ad doesn’t resonate well with a consumer, they can reflect back with media that present a negative opinion of a show or advertisement.

The other thing that we’re seeing as part of the emerging transparency of media is consumer-initiated media–both consumer-initiated programming and consumer-initiated advertising. Here, the programmer and/or advertiser doesn’t even need to start the dialog: the dialog is initiated by the consumer. Let’s say a consumer is madly in love with a certain product–like a certain brand of coffee, or a particular breath mint–or they have a tremendous experience with a car-rental company. Well, in this case, it may not make a difference whether the company that makes that product or offers that service does advertising or not. The consumer is simply picking up the mantle and saying, "Look. I think so highly of this product or service, I’m going to create my own love note about it. I’m going to tell the world about it." And, of course they haven’t asked for permission. It’s just a case of somebody going the extra mile because they like a product or service.

I think the most genuine activity in consumer-generated advertising and programming is happening organically through whatever means consumers have at their disposal (think the original Coke-Mentos video), but you clearly see some "traditional" media companies (like Current TV, or like VH-1 with its "Web Junk" show) and tech firms (like Personiva, ViTrue, and DaveTV) trying to help the process along.

[itvt]: In your experience, how do ad agencies feel about the fact that consumers can do this kind of thing?

Hanlon: They see it as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they are enamored of this ability to tap into organic love from the consumer. There’s nothing more powerful–nothing that’s more of a gold standard in marketing–than an individual’s heartfelt recommendation to another individual: "Hey, this product is worth your time," or "Hey. I tried this, and I really loved it." So what we usually refer to as word-of-mouth, right?

The other side of the coin, of course, is that it completely undermines the controlled process that, historically, marketers have used to get their messaging out: so, the creation of the message and the delivery of that message to a supposedly targeted audience that supposedly is going to be interested in that message.

My feeling about the user-generated phenomenon is that it’s something that’s not going away. It’s something that we, as practitioners of advertising and/or creators of programming, need to recognize and embrace. Obviously, what’s scary about it is that, in the age of media transparency, consumers have an amazing ability to call bullshit when they see it: if you have a product that’s lousy, you’re going to find life very, very difficult very, very quickly. Because consumers can not only call you out on it, they can call you out in a very speedy and vociferous manner. So this phenomenon can definitely amplify the negatives about your product. On the other hand, if you’ve got a really good product, this phenomenon is going to amplify its positives to a degree that the advertising industry has never been able to achieve before.

Now, while some in the traditional advertising industry almost certainly see the phenomenon of user-initiated media as a threat, I would argue that the genie’s not going back in the bottle. The age of media transparency is upon us, whether traditional advertisers and programmers like it or not. And fighting it is only going to cause you more pain and consternation. To me, the fact so that a consumer would go out of his way to create his own ad for your product–that’s not something you want to close the door on: you should open the door, invite them into the den, and serve them hors d’oeuvres.

[itvt]: So obviously you don’t see user-generated advertising as a fad…

Hanlon: No. Because it’s part of a fundamental shift in how people communicate with one another that’s a result of new digital technologies like the Internet, peer-to-peer, broadband video, etc. Thanks to these technologies, people can now communicate in a more efficient and direct manner, and this is going to result in a reinvention of how advertising and programming are created. What it means on the programming side of the equation is that programmers now have a huge talent farm at their disposal: a way to find new talent and ideas outside of the traditional hierarchies of Hollywood. And on the advertising side, it means that the creative directors at the ad agencies now have–whether they like it or not–hundreds of new art directors, copywriters and video producers.

[itvt]: Do you think the emergence of user-generated advertising threatens traditional advertising agencies?

Hanlon: I don’t think agencies will disappear, just as I don’t think television programmers and networks will disappear. But I do think they need to evolve–and very quickly–away from the traditional linear approach to programming and advertising. Advertising agencies that hold on to traditional ways of doing business risk what you might call being "Google-ized." Let me explain what I mean: Google is not an Internet technology company. It’s not even so much a search company. What it really is is an advertising infrastructure company: 99% of its revenues come from advertising. Now, Google didn’t go up and down Madison Avenue, knocking on people’s doors and asking, "What do you think of this idea of ours, called AdSense?" They just launched it. And, unbeknownst to much of Madison Avenue, a $4 billion-plus run-rate business was created, seemingly overnight. Now, if that doesn’t give people in the ad business a reason for pause, then they’re simply not paying attention. And, frankly, I would suggest that a lot of people in the ad business are not paying attention–and I say that as a guy in the ad business.

At any rate, there’s a circle of life and it’s either vicious or virtuous, depending on your perspective. If you’re inflexible and you want to hold on rigidly to the traditional conventions of advertising and programming, all this emerging transparency in media that I’ve been talking about is a vicious problem. On the other hand, you can view the world as a virtuous circle of possibility, and argue that traditional approaches and the new media transparency can live in harmony with each other.

[itvt]: So how should advertising agencies–and, for that matter, programmers–respond to the emergence of this media transparency that you’ve described?

Hanlon: I can probably answer that question best by telling you what we’re doing at Denuo. One of the reasons Denuo exists is a recognition that some of the best and most lasting innovation in the media business–both in the advertising business and the programming business–is not going to be coming from the incumbents. For example, the way we measure television and radio in the future probably won’t come from companies like Nielsen and Arbitron, despite their best efforts. Likewise, the newest programming genres are probably not going to come first from NBC or a cable network. Most likely, they’re going to be coming from the edges. And at the edges are companies that are much more entrepreneurial, much more startup, much more doubtful about the traditional models of programming and advertising, and much more open-minded about new models.

[itvt]: Will the agencies, therefore, find themselves in a position where they have to start buying these edge companies, in order to stay relevant?

Hanlon: That’s a very interesting question. Because I think the traditional response from agency-dom is to buy and absorb. And while that is certainly one strategy, and while I would argue that there are clearly some technologies, companies and platforms out there that could do well by being purchased by holding companies, I would also argue that investing or buying aren’t necessarily the only ways to achieve or get to the future.

[itvt]: So what do you recommend?

Hanlon: There are numerous other ways to benefit from the work these companies are doing besides buying them–despite the fact that in the ad business we do often tend to think exclusively in terms of mergers and acquisitions. In fact, there are lots of companies that Denuo has relationships with that wouldn’t want our investment or acquisition money, even if we had that money to spend. High-tech entrepreneurs already have enough money behind them. You see, there’s plenty of money out there in the technology space, between the VC world and the private equity world, and the hedge funds, and the angel investors, and even the public markets. So if we were just about making monetary investments, we would be shut out by three fourths of the platforms and technologies we’re interested in. I’m not saying that we’re never going to make those kinds of investments and purchases, but it’s certainly not our primary focus. It’s true that there are lots of firms out there that basically will write a check first and ask questions later; however, I don’t think you can amalgamate your way to the future like that.

So what we see ourselves as doing is building strategic relationships with companies with relevant technologies. The nature of the relationship varies, depending on the company–and, yes, some of those relationships do have financial investment components in them; but many don’t. The companies we have relationships with include Brightcove in the broadband video creation and distribution space; Reactrix in the next-generation out-of-home space; Black Arrow, a semi-stealthy company in the non-linear video ad-insertion space; MeeVee in the video guidance and navigation space; ViTrue in the user-generated advertising space (ViTrue being a company that represents a compromise between consumer-generated content and marketers’ desire that the marketing of their products doesn’t devolve into anarchy); as well as various other companies that I can’t mention publicly at this point. So basically we have strategic relationships with a number of companies and platforms which we think are representative of the rapid change that’s happening in the media space and which ordinarily, if we were a traditional agency, we wouldn’t have any reason to have relationships with.

[itvt]: And what’s the unifying factor behind these various strategic relationships you’ve formed?

Hanlon: We’re trying to figure out where the media business in all its forms–advertising, programming, distribution, consumption, guidance and navigation, measurement, etc.–is going to be in the next three to five years.

[itvt]: One oft-discussed topic we haven’t touched on yet is DVR. What are your views on DVR technology?

Hanlon: I look at DVR as two levels of activity. One is obviously the whole time-shifting thing, and how people use that–including to avoid watching commercials. And the other has to do with home networking–the beginnings of what I would call "device neutrality." Meaning that if I record something on my DVR, why can’t I also then send it to another TV in the house, or to an MP3 player, or to my PC, or to any other device, so that I can consume it when and where I want? So, in short, the two levels of activity are first the physical recording and what you do with that recording on your TV set once you’ve gotten it stored; and then secondly what you can do with that recording outside of the TV set. Basically, I see the DVR morphing into DVR-plus-home-networking: the two spheres overlap and co-mingle. What TiVo and Akimbo are doing with their respective broadband-into-TV projects is clearly part of that convergence.

If you think about it, television in the future will all be about video plus storage–and that storage can be something big, like a hard drive, or something small, like flash memory in a mobile phone. And obviously, there are going to be multiple ways to get content to that storage. There’s the linear broadcast way–TiVo being a good example of that. Then there are things like datacasting–MovieBeam being an example of that.

I actually think there is plenty of story left in the datacasting category. Using the digital broadcast stick to drizzle audio, video and text to supplicant hard drives or flash memory cards could be a very efficient way to finely split and deliver increasingly personalized content in ways that don’t hog bandwidth. I think there’s a lot of potential in multicasting, for example–the ability to take a digital signal and multiply serve different types of content. The ability to use an over-the-air digital signal as a transmission vehicle for data, for video and for audio is absolutely going to be a robust way of delivery, alongside satellite, telco delivery systems, broadband, etc. I’m a big believer that terrestrial has many moons left in its life. I see services like MediaFLO or Modeo as pretty interesting opportunities for delivering video into mobile environments, for example.

[itvt]: What are your thoughts on mobile video?

Hanlon: I think the jury is still out. I saw a survey last week which said that certain audiences, at least, are not interested in video on their phones. It’s hard to predict: at one point, I would have argued that people weren’t going to be interested in social networking–in putting all their information online and having people see their innermost secrets and stuff. Yet social networking is now a huge phenomenon. So who knows? I think part of the problem may be that mobile video is still being defined in conventional terms: I think we have yet to see what the form factors of the genre are going to be. I have to say, though, that as a traveler–a frequent traveler, unfortunately–there are plenty of times when the TV at the airport bar is tuned to something I’m not interested in, and I know there’s a soccer, baseball or football game that I’m really interested in, and that I’d love to have access to. And that’s what’s important: access. I don’t care what kind of screen it’s on–even if it’s a small screen that’s not inherently suitable for television, it’s still access. If you give me access to what I want to watch, I’m going to love you. I also think there are situations when you’re watching a sporting event in the stadium or on TV where mobile video is going to be very useful: if I miss some kind of detail about the game, some key moment, it would be useful to have access to that moment on a screen in my hand. And I can’t imagine why a judiciously targeted, relevant and non-interruptive ad message couldn’t help pay the freight for such an experience.

[itvt]: Since one of your main interests is the delivery of interactive advertising experiences across platforms, I’m assuming you are involved in the work the AAAA is doing on the development of standards…

Hanlon: Well, I used to be very involved in that organization. I was a founding member of the AAAA’s Advanced Video Committee. I left about a year-and-a-half ago, in part because I was moving to a more corporate level at Publicis Groupe. But I was also getting a little put off by the slow pace at which our efforts were bringing about any real changes in the marketplace. Our group put out the first version of what we called our "On-demand metrics guidelines" two or three years ago now. It was basically 11 or 12 data points deep. Yet even today, anything resembling those guidelines has yet to come into the marketplace. On the other hand, I must say that there are some very smart people on that committee now. By the way, it’s now called the Video Futures Group–they changed the name since I left.

[itvt]: What are your thoughts on VOD advertising?

Hanlon: Well, when I was at the AAAA, the cable operators–a group of four, five or six of them–came to us and said, "Hey, OK. We hear what you’re saying about standards, but we can only do so much. Let us give you these four data points." Unfortunately, those four data points–homes passed, average "views" (with a "view" really meaning a "start" and not providing any indication of how long a selection is/was viewed or by how many unique viewers/set-tops, etc.) by day, week, month–were more like one-and-a-half. Basically, they were just excuses. The reality is that VOD advertising is caught in a witch’s brew of political issues–mostly on the cable operators’ side. If they don’t figure them out and come to some kind of agreement, they’re going to risk missing out on a robust opportunity for ad-supported VOD. Right now, unfortunately, VOD as an advertising platform is what I like to call a zero-billion-dollar business. And this is because it’s been held hostage to local ad sales at the cable operator level.

[itvt]: Why do you think that is?

Hanlon: I couldn’t begin to tell you. I think it’s because advertising has traditionally been largely a local business for cable operators. As they’ve improved their technology to create things like interconnects, and introduced other technologies for delivering advertising to local markets, they seem to have held things like addressable advertising and VOD advertising hostage to buying more local spots. I think this does a great disservice to the advertising capabilities that they could actually offer. Because addressable and VOD advertising are, after all, about being able to target audiences more finely than simple linear ads could ever do. To say that the only way to experiment with addressable ad-targeting and/or on-demand video ad-insertion is through local spot cable inventory is both ridiculous and self-limiting. There is a far greater pool of "national" content-sponsoring advertising dollars that MSO’s could be getting a nice taste of if they simply offered technological facilitation to national programming ad avails–allowing national advertisers to addressably serve multiple ads in HGTV VOD programs, for example. In other words, sharing advertising revenue with national content partners instead of splitting competitive (and redundant) ad "avails."

And, at the same time as the cable operators’ local ad-sellers are holding back progress in VOD advertising, those operators’ programming sides are saying to programmers: "Give us your content for our VOD menu (though, of course, we’re not going to pay you extra for it, because we already think we’re paying for it when we pay for your linear channels), and, in return, we’ll give you access to our VOD data (though, of course, you can’t share that with advertisers, so you can’t use it in your sales efforts). I think that’s a pretty perverse way of creating an ad business.

Another issue is this: if you think about it, even Comcast–the largest cable operator in the US–will only be in around 25 million homes, even after they take over the Adelphia systems. When I last checked, there were 110 million-plus television households in the US, according to Nielsen. So, at best, Comcast reaches a fifth of US TV households; and even in markets where they’re dominant, such as Chicago and Philadelphia, there’s still 15, 20, or sometimes 25% of the multichannel marketplace that’s getting its television through satellite and not cable.

So, for a national advertiser, wouldn’t it be easier and more appropriate to simply buy a national ad on, say, ESPN’s VOD programming, rather than having to buy an ad on ESPN’s VOD service on Comcast, and then having to call Charter and buy a separate ad on ESPN’s VOD service on their platform, and then having to call Time Warner, and then having to call Mediacom, etc.–all in an effort to cobble together a national footprint that really isn’t one? Even if I’m able to cobble all the cable VOD offerings together, I still can’t create a national footprint, such as I could conceivably get with one phone call to ESPN or some other programmer.

[itvt]: Is nothing being done to solve this problem?

Hanlon: Not really. And I have no idea why not. I’ve been railing against this situation for years. There’s been nobody more active in the charge for VOD than myself and our sister agencies at MediaVest–StarCom, GM Planworks and the Publicis Groupe. We were chomping at this bit four years ago.

We’re also still no better off, measurement-wise, than we were four years ago. Yes, Rentrak has come along and has been able to make heads or tails of the data. Yes, there’s been a trickle of data from some of the operators. But it’s nowhere near what we all need. Rentrak’s data, for example, we don’t have access to: Rentrak couldn’t give it to us even if they wanted to. And why not? Because the cable guys have basically said, "That data is not for the advertisers, yet." For whatever reason. Now, I suspect it’s because some people fear that that transparency is not necessarily going to help them grow their linear ad business. But I honestly think the absolute opposite is true. I think sharing that data would actually enhance their ad business. It would allow advertisers and their agencies to get to see what it is they are actually paying for. God forbid that we could actually see what people are watching and then deliver ad messages in those environments! Without getting a taste of the VOD data gathered by the cable operators, we simply can’t tell what’s performing and what’s not. I should say, though, that Comcast and Time Warner seem to be the most reluctant to share that data. Cablevision, on the other hand, has at least been open to the idea.

Put it this way: there’s a reason why people are falling all over themselves trying to create broadband video ad environments, and why advertisers and their agencies can’t get enough of that kind of advertising. It’s because those environments are measurable. We can measure broadband video far better than we can measure VOD. As a result of this measurability, broadband video is getting more ad dollars than VOD by an order of 20 to 1.

Another reason why the advertising industry is so enthusiastic about broadband video is that there’s no intermediary–meaning that revenue doesn’t have to be split with a third party. We can go directly to ESPN, HGTV, A&E or whoever, and put our ads directly in the content environments we know people are interested in–and, of course, get data on how those ads have performed.

[itvt]: What percentage of a typical advertising budget these days is going to broadband?

Hanlon: Probably not enough, in comparison to actual viewer behavior. By which I mean that I think far more people are accessing, consuming and sharing broadband video than is reflected by the amount of ad dollars going to that space. I think there’s a disproportionate amount of ad spend going to linear television: the slackening of the broadcast and cable television upfront marketplaces is a pretty clear sign that it’s not just about linear television any more.

At the same time, even though I think there are far more people consuming broadband video right now than is reflected by the ad dollars behind it, there’s still a supply issue with broadband video: there’s not yet enough broadband video ad inventory to sop up the billions of dollars of television advertising money. But that’s clearly going to change before too long.

The irony of all this is that television–including linear television–is all going to be delivered via an IP architecture within 10 years, anyway. Voice is already there, right? Telephone services are already being widely delivered over IP. Video is next. The telcos will be the first ones to usher that in here in the US, though cable won’t be far behind. All this is going to happen in the name of bandwidth, right? IP provides a way to deliver programming and content in a less taxing bandwidth environment.

So, if you want to understand the future of television advertising, look no further than broadband video. Because the elements of how broadband video is done–how it’s measured, the ad units, the flexibility of such, the interactivity, etc.–are the beginnings of how television and other traditional video environments are going to look not too far down the road. Plain and simple.

[itvt]: Presumably the emergence of IPTV and broadband video will lead to more interactivity…

Hanlon: Absolutely. Consumer-controlled and consumer-generated will clearly be a major part of the television experience in the future. You can already see this at the edges in today’s other-than-TV video environments, where people are creating and sharing their own videos, mashing up broadcasters’ content, and so forth. I’m actually also hugely interested in and a big fan of the interactive TV services you get in the EchoStar and DirecTV environments today, such as the multiscreen displays that allow you to follow multiple channels at once. The emergence of IPTV is only going to strengthen that phenomenon–making those kinds of services more robust than they are today: when programming is served in an IP environment, it becomes malleable, clickable, actionable. Right now, these services are still held hostage to bandwidth issues and to channel-switching or video-switching technologies that are admittedly first-generation stuff. But with an IP infrastructure, you can serve up three or four streams of video in a fraction of the bandwidth. So I would argue that what the DBS guys do today is rudimentary, in comparison to what’s going to happen in the future. I mean no disrespect to those guys–I think what they’re doing is pretty compelling stuff. I’m just surprised that we haven’t gotten to a point where we see more of it: multiple camera angles during a soccer game or a basketball game, for example. However, I think that’s simply because of technological limitations–not because consumers aren’t interested.

[itvt]: Now presumably the emergence of technologies such as DVR and broadband IP could also be bad for the advertising industry, by giving viewers more choices, and thus more options to avoid advertising, correct?

Hanlon: I’m a big believer in the emerging dimensionalization of media–and this is a process that will affect all media, not just video. What I mean by dimensionalization is that it’s getting harder and harder to get an appropriate ad message to an interested audience–simply because consumers are smarter, have better antennae than before, and can filter out stuff both mentally and with technology like DVR ad-skipping. So if an ad message gets through to a consumer, chances are that that was either because his defenses were down for some reason or because he was–God forbid!–actually interested.

So if consumers are, for the most part, only getting ad messages that they’re actually interested in, then obviously you want to enable them to somehow go further with that message. So, in a TV environment, you want to provide them with the ability to pause the linear broadcast and click into a long-form video on the product you’re advertising, or into an application that allows you to grab their name and address, or into an application that allows them to download something. Or in an out-of-home environment, if you’re doing billboard advertising for, say, a show that’s premiering this fall, you might want to provide them with some kind of visual barcode that they could grab with their camera phone and then send to their DVR to remind them to watch and/or record that show. Or in a radio environment, you might want to make it possible for consumers, who hear a song they like, to call a number, use their cell phone to capture a piece of that song by holding it next to the radio, and then receive a text message identifying the artist. So I believe that this dimensionalization process–this process of allowing consumers to go further with a message that’s interesting to them–will take place in a number of forms of what you might call "traditional media." I think digital infrastructure is going to allow that. In fact, we’re already seeing it online, and I think it’s going to happen in traditional forms of media, as well, including television.

[itvt]: Earlier this week, YouTube announced an advertising strategy consisting of branded content channels and what they’re calling "participatory video ads." What’s your reaction to that announcement?

Hanlon: It seems like an obvious first step for them advertising-wise, but they still have copyright and questionable content issues to deal with–two things that advertisers will still have problems with and that have yet to be addressed. On the other hand, they do have scale–no question there. To be honest, companies like Revver are more intriguing to me: what they lack in scale (at least for now) is trumped by their careful thought to content and business-model issues. If those things are solid, the scale will come.

[itvt]: What current examples of interactive/non-traditional advertising do you find inspiring?

Hanlon: Well, I’m reluctant to toot the horn of a company we have a relationship with, because it will look like I’m shilling for them. But, that said, I think that what TiVo has done with telescopic advertising is very intriguing, and I think it could be applied beyond the TiVo platform: if I see an ad and I’m interested in it, not only can I push a button and get more information, but the linear TV stream is paused while I’m off accessing that information, so I don’t miss any of the program I was watching. With systems such as Wink’s, RespondTV’s or WorldGate’s there was a penalty for interacting with an ad, inasmuch as doing so would take you away from what you were watching. But with TiVo’s system there’s no penalty: it allows you to engage as deeply as you want with an advertiser, potentially all the way to a sale, without spoiling your viewing experience. I think we’ll see a lot more of this type of thing going forward–whether TiVo itself goes large with it through its relationship with Comcast, or it turns out that TiVo’s implementation is just the harbinger of an emerging phenomenon. And the reason I think it’s going to be so big is because, as I was just saying, if you give consumers who are interested in your ad an opportunity to go further, they will. Another way of looking at this phenomenon is as a process in which a direct and/or promotional marketing mindset is starting to creep into the impression-based advertising that TV’s traditionally always been about. And I think all this is going to provide marketers with an amazing opportunity to see who’s viewing what and consuming what, and to gather more information about the people who are requesting more information.

URL: Denuo Group

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