The Big Opportunity for IPTV: Linear Addressible Advertising

On the road to full addressability, service providers would typically first opt for zoning. The degree of granularity chosen can be highly flexible and can vary market-by-market. Service providers could start with a ‘coarse’ city-by-city methodology, or alternatively jump to a neighborhood-by-neighborhood strategy.

Once zoning is in place, the potential now exists for the service provider to provide feedback on the actual viewership within each zone to the advertiser. Service providers can, for example, assess the number of viewers tuned into a particular channel and the number of people within a particular neighborhood or postal code who viewed a specific ad.

The next stage typically is to move to full addressability and ultimately interactivity. This kind of phased approach allows the service provider to mitigate the level of risk by gradually increasing investment—commensurate with the revenue opportunity.

In a time of increasing service provider competition and pressure on both consumer and advertiser spending, the introduction of network-based targeted advertising can increase ad effectiveness, limit advertiser waste, and boost total average revenue per user (ARPU). For the telco community, addressable advertising may well turn IPTV from a service with potential to one capable of delivering sustained commercial success.

John Reister is Chief Architect for BigBand Networks.
John.reister@bigbandnet.com