An interesting new deal was signed this week that could have some continued effects on the ways in which online advertising is created.
Visible World, a company known for working with major cable systems to be able to insert targeted advertisements that can be changed more easily. In other words, advertisements can be modified for temporality or a particular audience in ways not possible through traditional means of buying ad time.
The company wants to expand its reach more firming into the online space, and it hopes to do so by forming a partnership with Tremor Media, an online advertising group. The plan is to bring their targeted ad technology to the Internet by creating advertisements that can target specific groups. Les Luchter with OnlineMediaDaily touts that targeted advertising will "expand online and down to the sub-household, individual browser level."
Luchter writes of Andy Sheldon with Visible World, who will be heading the new division, "Explaining how a campaign would work, Sheldon said that an auto marketer wanting to promote seven different vehicles in 14 cities, with 20 local dealerships in each market, would be able to deliver nearly 2,000 possible different versions of an in-stream ad."
According to Daisy Whitney with TelevisionWeek, with the partnership, "advertisers can dynamically create and deliver targeted spots based on zip code, temperature or weather conditions, for instance. Advertisers can also monitor the performance of their various creative messages online and then optimize and tweak the ad campaign."
The plan is to roll out a mobile version of this system sometime in 2008, with the aim to allow advertisers the chance to control their message "regardless of media outlet," according to Luchter.
Matthew G. Nelson with ClickZ News points out, though, that there is a degree of measurement and accountability that the Internet raises that puts much more pressure on these target ads. "Combining the offline and online advertising systems has its hurdles, however, as the Internet can provide a higher degree of measurement, while there's currently no direct response measurement for television," he wrote. "Assessing effectiveness in each platform is a task both companies plan to approach with their combined data."
I've found Visible World's model for television advertising quite interesting, as questions and concerns of temporality continue to be raised, especially in relation to television advertising. As Visible World works with Tremor to expand its system's reach, I'm interested in seeing how the enthusiasm and effectiveness for Visible World's work expands into the online advertising platform.
