The Library at Mingione.net
This is an edited version of an article. Where text has been deleted, you will see "..." substituted. Click on the headline link to read the original article.
Cable Digital News Analysis
March 12, 2009 | Jeff Baumgartner
SAN FRANCISCO -- TV of Tomorrow 2009 -- Canoe Ventures LLC , the cross-MSO advanced advertising joint venture, expects to launch a national enhanced television campaign in the second half of this year that enables viewers to request more information about a product with the click of a remote control.
That's according to Arthur Orduna, the chief technology officer of Canoe ...
The campaign itself will run on Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), a CableLabs -specified platform that allows some simple interactive applications to run on cable\'s entire universe of digital cable set-top boxes, and not just the newer, more powerful tru2way models. (See Comcast, TWC Plan for EBIF and TV Apps Teams Face Cable Conundrum.)
Initially, Canoe and its MSO and programming partners will deploy a request for information (RFI) application that pops up during applicable 30-second spots.
The hope is that the added measurability and interactivity will beef up the value of those spots, though Orduna wouldn't say how much more advertisers might be willing to pay for the EBIF component. Depending on its success, EBIF could help boost a flagging cable advertising market that's losing dollars to the more targeted and measurable world of Internet advertising.
To help get the EBIF project off the ground and achieve a degree of scale early on, Canoe will supply uniform "templates" to an initial set of programmers and networks, yet to be disclosed. Canoe has already developed an EBIF template for voting and polling, and a version for the RFI app is underway.
Canoe is also considering applications for "telescoping," a technique that pulls up a long-form ad from the video-on-demand system or from some other location if the viewer triggers the request.
Addressable ads first
The initial EBIF project will follow Canoe\'s first product, which will emerge in the first half of this year and center on more targeted, addressable ads that rely on traditional ad zones and demographic data from a third party, starting with household income levels.
In that "community addressable messaging" approach, Canoe will tap into the existing 2,400 to 2,600 ad zones, which are already sold to advertisers and their agencies on a geographic basis. With household income levels added in, this should enable a car maker, for example, to deliver an ad for a premium vehicle to more affluent regions and send the default ad everywhere else.
For that launch, Canoe won't be collecting set-top data, but the plan is to eventually collect and analyze that viewing information from participating MSOs. "For now, we're keeping it very simple," Orduna said.
Later on, Canoe would like to offer advertisers the ability to build in even more advertising "variants."
"That's part of the roadmap of what we want to do," Orduna said. "But that will introduce some new complexities."
Eventually, Canoe and its partners would like to supply even more targeted levels of advertising to the point that dog food ads would be delivered only to homes with a dog owner, or car ads to individuals whose lease is set to expire in the next 30 to 60 days. Later on, Canoe would also like to bring addressability and targeting down to a household or even a device level.
To help vendors get a better grip on the technical needs of these advanced advertising projects, Canoe, along with its MSO partners and CableLabs, expects to introduce a series of technical specifications and "guidance." They hope to unveil the first pieces of that by the time The Cable Show rolls around early next month in Washington, D.C., Orduna said.
Canoe is also developing a Common Advanced Advertising System. The CAAS, as it's called, will contain Canoe's advanced order management system, plus elements central to data management and warehousing and content management and content delivery management. The early version will support the addressable ad product. It should be operational for the interactive, EBIF campaign by the second half of 2009, according to Orduna.
In addition to spelling out Canoe's role, Orduna also tried to address some of the things that fall outside the joint venture's scope of responsibilities. Among them, Canoe won't be going directly to advertising agencies. That responsibility will remain the domain of programmers.
Canoe also won't force MSOs to use specific products for ad insertion, at least not initially. If they already use Visible World as a vendor for that component, operators are more than welcome to continue doing so. "We're not dictating what they do below the line," Orduna said.
What about EBIF for broadband video or a Canoe platform for broadband video? "Not in 2009. Our heads would explode and we would die."
Paddling to Denver?
Although Canoe is headquartered in New York, the heart of the advertising world, it is starting to cast an eye on Denver, the former cable capital of the world.
"We are definitely looking for systems integration and test facilities, and we think Denver is the best place to do that," Orduna said.
He didn't go into further detail, but Canoe will have plenty of existing sites to tap into, including buildings and labs operated by CableLabs, Comcast Media Center (CMC) , enableTV Inc. , and Vidiom Systems Inc. if the joint venture opts to take that route.
— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Cable Digital News