[privacy] Cable Group to Unveil Targeted-Ad Plan

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121305869367359447.html?mod=todays_us_market
place

 


Cable Group to Unveil Targeted-Ad Plan


Project Canoe to Paddle 
Against Stronger Flow 
Of Dollars to the Web

By VISHESH KUMAR and EMILY STEEL
June 10, 2008; Page B8

For several years, the advertising world has been abuzz with speculation
about the cable industry's plans to create a nationwide platform for
targeted advertising. It is designed to be cable's solution to the growing
amount of ad dollars flowing to the Web.

On Tuesday, the cable companies behind the venture are set to release the
first significant details about their plans. Dubbed Project Canoe, the joint
venture among six of the leading cable companies is expected to announce
that it has completed its long search for a chief executive officer. David
Verklin, who formerly headed the Aegis Group and is one of the advertising
industry's most outspoken figures, will be the CEO of Canoe Ventures LLC.

Mr. Verklin, whose name has surfaced in recent months as a candidate to head
the project, will face a long list of challenges. They range from getting
six cable companies, each with its own agenda, to collaborate, to selling
advertisers on a relatively untested format.

While familiar on the Internet, so-called targeted advertising remains a new
concept for the TV business -- but one that is increasingly vital to its
future as an ad medium. The idea is that in order to compete, cable needs to
be able to offer, say, a pet-food company a way to reach only those
households likely to have dogs, or give an auto maker a way to mine only
those people whose car leases are about to expire.

Some cable companies give marketers a way to do that, but because each cable
provider uses a different technology, the process is a hassle for most
marketers. Canoe Ventures hopes to address that confusion by offering a
single technology platform. It also plans to offer interactive advertising,
which will allow viewers to drill down into certain pieces of a commercial
to ask for brochures, see different ad endings and make purchases using
their remote.

In an interview Monday, Mr. Verklin said that Canoe Ventures plans to sell
its new technology not to marketers directly but to programmers like Walt
<http://online.wsj.com/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=dis>  Disney's ESPN
or Viacom <http://online.wsj.com/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=via> 's
MTV. (Those programmers will then be able to offer the services to their
advertisers.) The upside for the cable companies is that they don't have to
build up their sales operations or risk alienating programmers by trying to
go around them. The downside is that they may not capture as much ad revenue
as they could with a more-direct approach.

Something that may concern programmers -- and damp enthusiasm: Because
targeted advertising theoretically offers more bang for the marketing buck,
advertisers may end up reducing their overall cable spend.

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