TiVo’s been ramping up advertising recently (as they said they would), via partners and going it alone. Due to a few requests I went ahead and captured, trimmed, and published the latest television and radio ads. I’ve caught the radio ads on the local talk station (WTOP in DC) late afternoons, while the television ads seem to air on a few second tier stations (like E!, where I grabbed it) later in the evenings.

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I’ve never been bothered by the envelope ads that Netflix sends out with my DVDs each week, but when it comes to putting ads on their website I’ve never been a fan of the strategy. Netflix has such an amazing website that I’ve found their banner ads really take away from the overall experience of the site. For a long time Netflix resisted the temptation of adding ads to their homepage, but with the heavy demand that they’ve seen for their mailer ads, it was only a matter of time before we saw them to be tempted to monetize the massive amount of traffic that comes to their site each day.I may have been critical of Netflix when they made their foray into banner advertising, but one thing that I love about the company is that they always do plenty of testing with any change to their business model and it appears that banner ads have been no exception. While we haven’t heard any official word on the state of these advertisement experiments, Netflix Fan is reporting that an anonymous source has told her that the ads simply weren’t worth the trouble and that Netflix will begin phasing them out over the next few months. (more…)

(via Orbitcast)

Turns out that video on our TiVo boxes promoting free (with subscription) Series 2 units isn’t the only holiday advertisement they shot… The elves had a little too much egg nog and busted out this Christmas rap while the camera was rolling.

We knew this was coming… In fact, Mari just covered a similar advertising service that will glue commercials onto Charter’s video-on-demand programming. TiVo’s “Program Placement” allows advertisers to buy slots for their commercials to play at the conclusion of a recorded program. This could be very lucrative for TiVo as it really creates a secondary advertising market, unlike Product Watch which has dried up. (Really, did we think opt-in advertising was going to be huge?) For example, let’s say a company can’t afford to run an ad during Lost or that a competitor has a deal with a network, through TiVo they can now purchase time to reach that demographic. As long as these ads are only inserted after programming, I can live with it.

NEW YORK, Nov 28, 2006 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ — TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO) announced today Program Placement, its latest advertising solution that offers advertisers an opportunity through the TiVo(R) Service to insert an ad after a program has played, when there is nothing left to fast forward through. For the first time, advertisers will be able to reach their target DVR audience by purchasing advertising enhancements against specific shows. Burger King Corporation, General Motors Corp., MasterCard Worldwide, The Weather Channel and Court TV are the first companies to take advantage of Program Placement on TiVo. Leading media and advertising agencies, including GroupM’s MindShare, Norwalk, CT-based Media Storm and GSD&M, worked with TiVo to have their clients be the first to use this revolutionary advertising solution.

Update: AdWeek breaks down the specifics of the new advertising and I’m feeling less tolerant. I’m not interested in seeing the TiVo interface covered with banner ads. Guess we know what else was in this month’s software update…

The graphical ad unit, which TiVo calls a “program placement,” appears at the end of a recorded program, on the screen asking viewers if they want to delete the show. TiVo said the ads are designed to be more interactive than standard TV spots, including options for long-form content, lead generation and purchases. Viewers must initiate all video, unlike so-called post-roll commercials increasingly common on Web sites.

It’s kind of like the war between spammers and anti-spammers. As soon as one side comes up with a new technological weapon, the other builds something for the arsenal to counter it. So it goes with television advertising.

Charter is starting a trial in hometown St. Louis of dynamic, on-demand advertising. The reason this is significant is because it greatly cuts down on the amount of time it takes to insert ads into VOD programming. Instead of planning weeks in advance, advertisers can deliver and update content virtually at any time.

The technology does look cool. Changes to content can be made without re-encoding and re-distributing the surrounding video, which suggests interesting applications for television outside of advertising. (Update a sitcom in re-runs with jokes that are relevant to current events. Serve up VOD news and update it with developments throughout the day…)

As far as advertising goes, we knew DVRs wouldn’t ultimately spell doom for the TV ad model. And I’ve got nothing against folks needing to make money by advertising their products. However, can we try to avoid overdoing advertisements in the new era of digital television? The amount of programming in a TV hour has significantly declined. I’d like a little more TV show with my hour of ads, please…

Shortly after TiVo announced KidZone last spring, they revealed Radio Shack would sell units — which hit stores in August. This week Radio Shack began running TiVo advertisements during prime time and late night TV. Surprisingly, they fail to mention (other than the fine print) that the “free” TiVo requires a subscription… unlike TiVo’s radio spot which is very clear.