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November 28, 2005
TiVo To Offer TV Ad Search
TiVo Users Soon Can Search for Ads from the Wall Street Journal covers a new "feature" from TiVo planned for next spring to let people search for ads of interest to them. So say you're interested in BMW ads. You could search for that, then watch 30 second spots. Oh, and advertisers might get to bid to make their ads come up tops. OK, we'll see how great this might turn out to be.
Seriously, if you're interested in buying a BMW, do you really want to watch a 30 second ad on your TiVo? Wouldn't you rather do a web search to get some more substantial information? And if so, hmmm -- we've already got those ads through Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and MSN.
Yes, they don't fit the video medium of TiVo or television. But that's the difference between TV, which is good for branding and desire (see the cool BMW ad -- now maybe you want one) and search, which is good for delivering up ads that match a person's existing demand (been thinking about a new car -- better do some research on types and prices).
That's why I long ago called search as a "reverse broadcast system," where searchers broadcast their desires. Maybe a TiVo ad search service will tap into that by letting advertisers tap into those broadcast desires as viewers search. But realistically, they'll dish up the same 30 second spots designed for generating desire rather than informing, missing what the searcher really wants.
Posted by Danny Sullivan on November 28, 2005 12:44 PM
