TiVo subscribers will be able to set up a profile of products and services by selecting categories or entering search-style keywords. TiVo will then download or record commercials that match those categories and keywords to users’ recorders. Advertisers will be able to choose the categories and keywords that they want associated with their adverts.
Categories of interest within the TiVo ad search will include automotive, travel, telecommunications and consumer packaged goods.
Initially media buyers Interpublic Media, OMD, and Starcom Mediavest Group, ad agency Richards Group and Comcast Cable’s advertising sales division will work with TiVo to create the service’s categories and help set a pricing model.
TiVo intends to capture the best of the Internet advertising model and create a unique advertising product for the television medium that will provide measurable results, said Davina Kent, vice president of TiVo national advertising sales.
But TiVo admitted that the financial model of its new service had yet to be worked out or why consumers would want to use the service to seek out commercials rather than skipping past them. We have all the capabilities of measuring what the consumers are doing. We could do a click-per-view, suggested Kent.
