What They Say
Vizio reported that it now has the ability to dynamically insert commercials into live programming, enabling addressable ad campaigns that can reach 11.2 million of its smart TVs. The company is using an open system to do this called Project OAR (Open Addressable Ready) backed by a range of US broadcasters including Disney, Comcast, CBS, NBCUniversal, Turner and Discovery.
The system works like this:
- Media sellers watermark the inventory that they want to make addressable.
- If a buyer wants to swap out a static ad with an addressable ad,
- Vizio smart TVs read the watermark and send that information to the seller’s ad server, which swaps in the addressable ad in real time.
What We Think
Like, I suspect, most people, I am ambiguous about targeted advertising. We all have stories about strange recommendations – for example, I wanted a table so that I could use a PC while I was on my training bike. It turns out that the best type of adjustable table was a unit designed for medical patients to be put over a bed. After buying it, I was inundated with adverts for disability aids for some time. On the other hand, systems that have good recommendations or tailoring, can feel more comfortable and convenient. Good or bad, targeting is not going to go away.
As Vizio recently went public, partly on the basis of potential revenues from this kind of advertising, we assume that Vizio is able to make a charge for making the content swap.
(While digging around for this story, I saw the weirdest thing. If I typed vizio.com into my browser, I was directed to UK distributor exertis.com. It also happened on my smartphone. Very strange! I dug around a bit more, and I saw a reference in my browser to viziosoundbar.uk at one point. Exertis is the UK distributor (as a JV) with Vizio of soundbars using the Vizio brand. So I tried connecting to Vizio.com via a VPN location in the US. That still took me to viziosoundbar.uk. Clearly, Vizio is trying to be ‘clever’ in managing its DNS to direct people to particular sites globally. Sadly, the firm is not quite clever enough!) (BR)
