Advertising « ActiveVideo

CloudTV™ Blog

Blog Home

User Admin

You are currently browsing the archives for the Advertising category.

Archive for the ‘Advertising’ Category

I Clicked on Tina Fey’s Glasses and She Responded

Thursday, April 14th, 2011 by Edgar Villalpando – SVP Marketing

Tina Fey

Because of the immense power of the cloud, our world is becoming so connected that it seems like anything is possible.

I know, stop me if you’ve heard that one before. But let’s look beyond the cliché and really think about it.

We live in a world where a smartphone app allows you to take a picture of anything, and returns a web search on the object you photographed (it’s not always an accurate return, I know, but bear with me). There’s an app that allows your mobile device to “listen” to music you hear in a room and returns information about the artist and song. There are apps that rely on your mobile device’s GPS to give you an instant guide to an unfamiliar neighborhood—nearby restaurants, bars, museums, etc.

If you told someone about this stuff 20 years ago, they’d likely have thought we were also commuting in flying cars. Just sit back and think about it: It’s freaking amazing. These apps have changed how we live, love, eat, work, shop and interact, all in an incredibly short amount of time.

So why are our TVs still living in the 20th century?

Sure, there are TV apps. But we’ve barely—barely—scratched the surface of what’s possible. And so many of those possibilities lie in the cloud. Why? Because these incredible experiences are all about making connections. And where are those connections made? The cloud.

Imagine if your remote was kind of like a Wii controller, and you could just point at the TV screen and click on, say, Tina Fey’s glasses during an episode of 30 Rock (you thought the title of this post made no sense, didn’t you? Au contraire!). Then imagine that info and links about Tina, or the world through Tina’s eyes, appear instantly on your screen, or on your tablet, phone or laptop. It could take you to other Tina Fey videos, or her IMDB profile, or to the causes she supports.

Now imagine clicking on Drew Brees during a football game and getting his updated stats, links to video highlights, cool deals from the companies he endorses, and so on. (Imagine clicking on Brett Favre and getting…well, let’s stick with Drew Brees.)

Through the cloud, the possibilities are endless. Advertisers, broadcasters, content developers and even the company who manufactured your device, or the retailer who sold it to you, could all have a hand in determining what happens when you click on someone or something (and who makes money off of it). Ultimately, though, the viewer would control the whole experience, so these apps would need to be useful and compelling.

CloudTV™ can make all of this happen. Smart TV ecosystem, we’re ready when you are.

Posted in Advertising, Content, Ecosystem, Uncategorized | Comment »

It’s Time to Put on Our Baseball Apps

Monday, April 4th, 2011 by Edgar Villalpando – SVP Marketing

Beard Meter

Baseball season is finally here, and people around the office here are particularly juiced (with no help from BALCO) about their World Champion San Francisco Giants returning to the diamond. Personally, I’m a Dodgers fan, so I’m glad we have a chance to regain our rightful place atop the NL West. As for the Oakland A’s fans among us, well, yeah, that club has returned to the Coliseum (ironically named, considering its state of decay). We won’t get totally geeked about the A’s until they’re allowed to move down here to San Jose.

Because everything on this earth makes me think of the cloud and TV apps, that got me thinking about sports TV in general.

When you hear talk of cable cord-cutting, it’s never coming from a sports nut. It’s extremely difficult—if not impossible—to watch live televised sports in your local market without a cable, telco or satellite connection.

In fact, for the sports nut, it’s not a question of cutting the cord. It’s a question of which cord to choose. Baseball, football, basketball and hockey fans are well served by their multichannel provider, through the combination of their regional sports networks, local broadcasts, ESPN, Versus, MLB Extra Innings, MLB Extra Extra Innings and…well, you get the idea.

But let’s put on our thinking caps (and jerseys), and imagine how much better the experience could be. Think sports TV meets TV apps, with access to stats, fantasy tracking, multiple camera views and audio tracks, on-demand instant replay, multi-device interactivity, multi-game video mosaics, social networking (send your distant friend an on-screen smack down), etc. Or for the less-is-more crowd, how about freeing up your view by toggling the scoreboard overlay off and on?

Let’s get the word out to everybody who can make this happen: Cable/satellite/telco operators, CE manufacturers, mobile carriers, advertisers and, of course, the sports programmers and Web developers. They can all join the cloud and use our CloudTV™ platform to bring the complete sports experience to any screen, anywhere, anytime.

So, take me out to the ballgame, take me out…with the cloud.

Posted in Advertising, Content | Comment »

3D’s Exciting, but Let’s Keep the Basics in Mind

Thursday, June 10th, 2010 by Edgar Villalpando – SVP Marketing

World Cup Soccer

As far as I can tell, everybody short of Pele will be watching the World Cup soccer matches in 3D. The only reason Pele won’t be putting on the silly glasses is because I expect he’ll be on hand for a lot of the matches.

If you haven’t heard, ESPN, with the love and support of wireline and satellite service providers from Philadelphia to Los Angeles and all points in between is broadcasting what is essentially the bragging rights to being the best ball kickers in the world in three dimensional glory. The event’s so exciting that Proctor & Gamble, Sony and Pixar will all experiment with 3D commercials.

Just as an aside here, I can understand and even anticipate a little bit a 3D ad from Pixar or Sony, but what’s P&G got to hawk that demands the expense of 3D equipment? Ivory Soap floating in an imaginary bathtub in your living room? Head and Shoulders cleaning up your dandruff as you wait for the soccer to resume?

I can’t see it—but then again most people can’t see it without an upgraded television, an upgraded service connection and a pair of silly glasses. And that’s the point. Most people can’t see it. My hope is that the industry, which tends to get carried away at times, doesn’t get too euphoric about the prospects of 3D TV. Yeah, it’s a neat concept; yeah, I’d love to see some balls get headed so close I can almost touch them; and yeah, the thought that this is only the start of a sports phenomenon fills me with anticipatory joy.

It also fills me with what psychiatrists describe as anticipatory anxiety because I’m afraid that looking forward to the next best thing we’ll somehow miss the best thing that’s in front of us right now: interactivity. You don’t need goofy glasses or a special TV to interact with sports programming. You just need a service provider with the wherewithal and desire to serve it up to you. Companies like ActiveVideo (there’s the commercial, you knew it was coming) will do the rest by retrieving content from the cloud and showering it down, on demand, to the consumers who want the latest statistics to go along with the game action.

It’s easy. It’s available now and, to steal a soccer phrase, it’s a GOOOOOAAAAAAAALL!!!!! for cable operators who put it in place.

World Cup soccer, I guess, is as good a place as any to start with 3D sports—allegedly there was some golf tournament this April that was in 3D, but, being a golf tournament, no one was interested enough to don the funny glasses to see the funny dressed duffers.

But I digress. Sports in 3D is great; it’s the future and it’s going to be a lot of fun—someday. Until that day, until everyone can watch different TVs with the same glasses, or no glasses, and until the price of televisions comes down to where the public will willingly switch out perfectly good and already-costly HD sets with newer costly 3D sets, sports in 3D will be a curiosity.

Sports with an interactive flair, on the other hand, is available today and to satiate a whole lot more subscribers than any 3D soccer match.

Posted in Advertising, Content | Comment »

Google: If Anyone Can Pull off a New TV Model, They Can

Thursday, May 27th, 2010 by Edgar Villalpando – SVP Marketing

GoogleTV

At first glance, this whole idea of Google TV seems like a ho-hum, here comes somebody else to try to make waves in the cable industry. Stand there in line behind Microsoft and TiVo and Apple and all the others who have come before you with limited or no success.

Sure, the surface concept seems shallow and devoid of content and distribution. Sure, the idea of showing today’s Web content on the Internet has been tried before and the audience has never been there. And sure, there is already a moneymaking machine in charge of television, from the broadcasters to the cable channels to the pay TV channels and it’s tough for anybody to throw a stick into the spokes of that well-oiled organization. And sure, it’s a solution that requires yet another box when content can instead be streamed directly from the cloud.

Beneath the surface, though, are a few lingering thoughts: This is Google, this is the age of partnerships, and the very mention of Google TV seems to have been enough to wake Apple TV from its slumber. So maybe there’s something there after all.

Content? Yeah what’s out there now is weak but when you have a pipe the size of Google’s and a potential audience used to tapping the search engine for anything from a word definition to a map to a satellite picture, content providers won’t be aloof. In fact, it seems pretty apparent that content shouldn’t be a problem for Google just as it’s not a problem for satellite and telco providers. Cable channels may come from and go to cable, but their main allegiance is to the almighty dollar and if Google can find a way to monetize its service, there will be multiple dollars to salute.

The likelihood is that Google, with an open platform and an army of eager apps developers will be able to come up with some sort of monetization formula that will draw the likes of broadcasters, cable channels and even existing online content providers like Hulu into the Google TV fold. So figure content is not a problem.

Distribution might be a bigger hurdle. Google has struck a deal with Best Buy so in the worst of circumstances it could have a Google-equipped set-top box or some other device for sale at your local big box store. It’s got a partnership with Sony so it could be included in a variety of Sony televisions. But to really get out there, Google needs to cut a deal with a cable or satellite box maker—Motorola, Cisco and quite possibly Pace—and they have to have the blessing of the service provider to incorporate Google. At that point, perhaps, it becomes Google TV channel, one multifaceted point where Google presents its apps and content and presence amid all the other cable selections. It’s not necessarily what the big boys in the Silicon Valley want, but it would be a workable idea in a cable/satellite dominated space.

Google TV surely looks like another ho-hum play in the video entertainment space until you take that second glance. At that point it looks like either a threat or a new avenue for cable. My guess is it will be a new avenue in an increasingly interactive cable space.

Posted in Advertising, Content, Distribution, Ecosystem | Comment »

Behavioral Ad Alerts? Seems Like Just Another Gadget

Thursday, February 25th, 2010 by Edgar Villalpando – SVP Marketing

Bobblehead

Whenever I have doubts about the ingenuity of mankind, I rummage around the house for the latest edition of the Brookstone catalogue. There, under one roof, I can find gadgets—each one “better” than the next—that can solve all of my problems. Even the ones I didn’t know I had.

Trouble pulling into the garage? There’s a gadget for perfect parking. Lose your car keys too often? Press a button and Brookstone will help you find them. Can’t stand the beeping made by the gadget on page 36? They’ve probably got headphones on page 38 that will mask the noise. It’s like an app store for, well…stuff!

I was reminded of this recently when I saw some news about how a group of U.S. trade bodies has developed a graphic for the Web that indicates behavioral targeting has taken place via the use of cookies to track Web users from site to site. The purpose of the icon is to assure the Web browser that the advertiser is a good guy who’s sticking to a set of industry-set regulatory rules.

Excuse me if I’m over thinking this, but it seems to me the creators of this concept—a group of leading advertising and marketing trade organizations—are addressing the symptom, rather than the problem. Just as the buyers of Brookstone products could practice parking skills or could put the car keys back in the right spot every time, there are ways to deal with privacy issues that don’t involve adding a meaningless icon to the clutter already on the screen.

Ask anybody who browses the Web and looks at advertising if they know the advertisers are gathering information on them and their eyes will no doubt narrow, their lips will compress and they’ll say, “Yeah. It’s a fact of life.” Those who developed the idea for the icon, however, said people actually are “rarely aware” they are being tracked, whatever that means, and 84 percent of them object to the activity. I believe half of that.

Generally, people understand that advertisers wouldn’t put information out there if they didn’t figure there was some way to make a buck off of it. If that includes tracking you, so be it. On the plus side, maybe that information will be used to give you a good deal on the camera of your dreams or a great holiday break. On the negative side it could be used to pitch a set of Ginsu knives. Or an Edgar bobble-head doll just for reading this blog.

But rather than simply alerting us to the prying eyes peeking over our shoulders, wouldn’t it be better for these agencies to hold the advertising and direct marketing communities to a higher standard? Wouldn’t it benefit everyone if those organizations would use their clout to ensure that users could feel that their privacy is being protected?

It seems to me that people can live with sharing their behavior with brand marketers, when they regard those brands as friends. So instead of giving us the illusion of safety—like taking off our shoes at airport security—by putting icons on the screen, I would suggest that the industry work vigorously to make sure that its own house is in order.

By the way, I think there’s a Brookstone gadget for that.

Posted in Advertising | Comment »