The world of television as an advertising medium has been the backbone of retail for a number of decades. Advertise and in came the traffic, through the front doors an into the cash register. But, beginning with the advent of digital and mobile, everything changed. Television viewership dropped while the shopper became the person in charge. So while everyone was yelling and screaming how low they could go, and another sale began on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and of course, Friday, the customer simply ignored and silenced herself behind digital and mobile instant gratification security of shopping, on her time and place.
So television extended the ratings window from overnight to +7 days to keep the ratings numbers reflective of the price one paid. But that only lasted until those numbers began to slide. Digital and certainly now mobile began to dig in and take over the customer’s attention.
As Alexandra Bruell wrote in the Wall Street Journal (12.20.17), ‘TV networks have been selling, serving and measuring ads with the same systems and processes for decades. But times are changing. More people are buying smart TVs that are connected to the internet, and independent tech firms are finding new ways to gather data about the viewing of shows and ads on individual TV sets.’
One such company is ‘Sorenson’s technology which overlays existing ads on smart TVs with new, more targeted advertising. Sorenson is now quietly making waves in media measurement and addressable advertising. The company has technology that can detect and analyze what’s on a smart TV screen, and then replace an ad with one supposedly better targeted for a specific household.’
What? What was that? […]