Alex Street's List: Ad Innovation

• The home is going digital," he proclaimed. "Media centre is the centrepiece product for what goes on in the home of the future."
• asy way to capture, store and share digital content including music, video and photographs, current media centres accept a cable, satellite or broadcast television feed and provide personal video recorder (PVR) functions including the ability to pause, rewind and replay live television programmes.

• Google’s search advertising model didn’t spring forth fully formed. It was iterated, and many of the key concepts were borrowed
• Google realized there was a problem with this approach. If an advertiser bid their way to the top of the ranking with an irrelevant ad, and no one clicked on it, then nobody made any money from the advertising.
• Google introduced clickthrough rate, as a measure of the ad’s relevance, into the ranking algorithm. So if an ad with a lower bid per click got clicked more often, it would rank higher.
• Google had two moments of pure brilliance. The first was PageRank. The second was introducing relevance into the pay-per-click auction model.

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• March 2006
• Andy Duncan calls the red button “clunky” and says it has been “overtaken by the opportunities offered by the internet and broadband.”
• Channel 4 will retain the red button for interactive advertising and for betting because it reckons it can make money on these
• next Big Brother will not include red-button voting.
• Ann Cook, ITV is “evaluating” red button effectiveness
• Sky has reorganised its interactive unit, re-naming it “networked media
• with plans by its new head, James Baker, to “figure out which types of interactivity suit which types of content on which interactive devices”
• cost of developing and running red-button applications remains high – and appreciably higher than creating similar services using phone, SMS or a website.
• Pressing red is like going back to an old-style website and this makes it feel like old technology. People are used to something much smarter now.”
• Seven weeks of planning to be spontaneous
• Fremantle and ITV have enjoyed success with red-button voting on hit shows like Pop Idol and I’m a Celebrity
• simple red-button voting application can cost £20,000 to £30,000 and then must be okayed by Sky before it can launch – a process that can take up to seven weeks.
• BBC is continuing to push the red button as part of its iTV remit
• Last year the BBC spent £17.1m on BBCi,
• BBC doesn’t run live, red-button voting services anymore. The corporation did have red-button voting in the first season of Fame Academy but this was simplified in the second season to give people access to live video from the house.
• “By far the simplest and easiest way for people to vote is through the telephone. What people really like on red button is a content-led service and we can focus on that because we are not under pressure to generate revenue from new services.”

  • Key point from the BEEB
• ed--button trial for additional information behind the BBC Ten O’Clock News, axed after six months because it was not a success with audiences.  
   Despite that poor response, news in general is still the most popular genre for BBCi’s always-on red-button service,
• we have found out that with Spooks, for example, people use the red button in the first 15 minutes or not at all, but they will play the Spooks game on broadband for a lot longer.”
• The pioneering red-button experience has brought a huge amount of learning.  
   “People will still want a choice of courts when they are watching Wimbledon, and they are going to want to participate along with factual programmes and get the karaoke lyrics for The Sound of Music
• Sky’s second-highest revenue stream after subscription is interactive – beating advertising income.
• the bulk of the interactive revenue is from SkyBet,
• scope for growth in interactive ads.”
• ITV Play brand – only uses the phone for its interactivity. In fact, the whole ITV Play strategy is about phone-based interactivity,
• TV Play’s interactive strategy is clearly based on the commercial broadcaster’s red-button experiences.
• Coronation Street already has red-button capability and Emmerdale is likely to get it later this year.
• Taking a lead from the BBC, ITV is also looking at launching always-on iTV applications that sit behind the red button all the time.
• the red button is no longer the centrepiece of the interactive TV experience.
•       

  In this environment, how much a part the red button plays in the future will depend on whether it can keep pace both creatively and commercially with other technologies.

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• Teletext is in terminal decline - but the digital text replacing it is a poor substitute. I feel a campaign coming on.

  • Read collection of users comments below
• I think where you are going wrong with digital text is by using Virgin Media. I used to have Telewest a while back and the digital services were atrocious.
• we are constantly out of sync with programmes like the news which are supposed to start at 6 o'clock on the dot.
• watched my telly 'crash' as a result of the slow-loading of some red button service or other
• Teletext music reviews on Channel four are second to none
• CEEFAX is better than digital text, because it is faster, has easier navigation and better context. The awfully looking limited interface forces the producers of CEEFAX pages to concentrate on writing short, informative text.
• Digital text is shiny, but slow and the navigation is awful, too.
• I gave up on digital teletext many years ago. It is appallingly slow.
• Teletext is great for reading all the news stories while eating one's cereal in the mornings.
• bove poster about how good
• How hard can it be for channels to mirror their analogue content on digital?

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• Press red button, donate kidney
• NHS Organ Donor Register by pressing the interactive red button on their digital handsets.
• using the kind of interactive technology that has long been a feature of television charity appeal shows

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• teletext remember   teletext holidays went on to sell some 15 - 20% of all UK breaks!
• the heart of a modern "digital"   interactive system is a streamer, this sends data out to the set top box and   guess what? its a data carousel and the main manufacture is the same company   who was the market leader in analogue teletext infrastructure
• The Red button is the start key of the   Sky Interactive platform, pressing this will load the application the   broadcaster wants to run on that channel, the application will have already   been downloaded to the unit when you last watched the channel, if the   application is not present in your box it will take a while for it to pull   this from the data carousel before it can present data on screen
• selection of any item will result in the unit pulling data from the   carousel,
• again here you may get a delay as the unit waits for that data to   be broadcast in sequence.
• the BBC and Sky   themselves use this heavily to cross promote series and competitions, this   is a pure 1 way application, the user requests data which is served to them   but in fact is being broadcast to all
• interactive adverts the "data" layer is used to provide additional   information or perhaps let you order a sample of the product, these use the   same technology but are far more difficult for the broadcaster as the   application has to be pre loaded
• Sky Digital use the domestic phone line as   a back channel. This is the main reason your subsidised box has a clause   making you keep the phone line connected
• glorified teletext.
• one   to one relationship
• Recent industry reports have actually   shown a slump in interactive viewers with a drop of about 600,000
• nature of television as being a 1   way couch potato medium
• viewers are far more likely to use the internet for   true 2 way interaction.

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• Meebo found a new way in which to monetize its instant messaging client by offering branding opportunities for its Meebo Rooms and custom Sponsor Rooms
• easy media-sharing in an environment that can be created by a particular marketer around specific content.
• extensive data collection, so participating brands can better track user behavior and content uptake through Meebo
• direct way in which brands can enter social media conversations
• works by having an expandable ad that displays at the bottom of Meebo’s website, which reveals shareable media.
• giving brands a bit more information to work with on the qualitative end
• Such data can in turn be used outside of Meebo
• as it can be applied to a number of advertising and media-sharing campaigns
• there are other initiatives out there that plan on providing the tools and the distribution channels for performing such in-depth research and analysis for the purpose of allowing others to expound on some of the research conclusions.

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• interactive TV services
• the red button will grant your wish.
• little button plays a big role in this summer’s top TV events, from the World Cup to Love Island. “Press red” to turn a plain telly programme into an interactive experience in which you can vote, enter competitions and quizzes, watch exclusive footage and access a wealth of background information.
• ITV has retired its unprofitable interactive betting service.
• two main types of interactive TV application are programme enhancements, and always-on (“24/7”) features. You can access enhancements during a particular show, or for a fixed period after transmission.
• switching to a different court at Wimbledon, or playing the ‘Four Nations’ quiz during Blue Peter
• press red when watching BBC1 (on digital) for listings, news and weather updates

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