Marketing Internet TV -- Present and Future

Marketing

Internet TV -- Present and Future

The future of how will people watch television is far from clear. The rapid advancements in technology have provided an increased number of options for different kinds of program viewing. Customers now have the ability to view only the programs they want without having commercial interruptions. Although this can be effectively accomplished now with devices such as the digital video recorders (DRV), when internet derived programing becomes more ubiquitous this will act to further accelerate the consumers control over their media. Advertisers will have to evolve to be able to deliver a marketing message through this medium. Although there will continue to be opportunities for traditional advertising, such as the thirty second ad, it is likely that marketers will begin to further integrate their messages into the content of the program even further through product placement.

Internet TV Overview

The combination of the internet and television is a revolutionary force that will redesign the entire industry. No longer will consumers be tethered to broadcasting schedules or be subjected to unwanted program interruptions. Although the technology is continuously developing, many new televisions currently on the shelves of mass retailers are already equipped with internet functionality. Google TV for example allows users to access over one hundred thousand movies and a variety of television shows on demand with almost instant viewing (Google TV, 2012). The hardware is available either built in to the television itself, or as a separate component that can easily be added to older televisions.

Figure 1 - Google TV (Google TV, 2012)

Furthermore, the platform is fully expandable. For instance users can easily add programs such as Pandora or Netflix that offer content through subscription. Many other programs that offer free content have found ways to interrupt the programming and provide some amount of commercial material. However, many users have found ways to bypass these adverts and there is a constant back and forth between the providers and some technologically sophisticated users over the mandatory viewing of the content. The content itself is also much different than a traditional thirty second ad. For example, many of these ads are fully interactive. A car manufacture, such as Nissan, can show their commercial while simultaneously providing the user links to find the product near them or product customization options.

Product Placement

With a variety of options available to the consumer to watch their favorite media without having to view traditional marketing messages, the effectiveness of broadcast advertising has been significantly diminished (Wiles & Danielova, 2009). As a result there is a growing trend in which marketing messages are inserted directly into the content. The advantage of this is that users essentially are forced to view the marketing message since it is incorporated directly into the content. Therefore, there is no way to block the message or to fast forward through it. Furthermore the product or service can be portrayed in a positive light through its integration with the plot or other aspects of the content. The effectiveness of product placement is currently being studied primarily by studying the attitudes of college students or small samples (Gregorio & Sung, 2010).

The effectiveness of the product placement on the consumer has been shown to be largely mixed. In some cases a product placement can have a positive influence on the viewer improving the memory of the brand and positively effecting brand equity (Cowley, 2011). However, in other cases, some product placements have actually worked to diminish the perceived value of the brand as well as the content provider; especially in cases where the attempts to place a product are entirely obvious. Studies reveal that prominent placements can negatively impact brand attitudes of viewers who report high levels of program liking (Cowley & Barron, 2008). Furthermore, when a product is placed more subtlety into the content there is far less risk of a negative experience.

However, some of the most blatant product placement advertisements have also been successful. One excellent example of product placement can be provided by the Transformer movie series. General Motors provided the cars that were used in a movie about vehicles that transform into evil-fighting robots (Movie Biz, 2007). In this arrangement GM did not even have to pay for their cars to be included in the film. Rather they provided roughly a million dollars' worth of vehicles and equipment as well as agreed to pay for some of the movies promotional material that featured their vehicles.

The GM cars in the movie are actually the central characters which are somewhat abnormal for most product placement projects. The amount of exposure that the brand gained through this medium is enormous since the movie became a blockbuster and the central characters were the heroes of the film. The target audience was composed of the younger demographics and the movie presented the cars as "cool" (Associated Press, 2007). Although, this demographic is the target, the movie also works to influence the opinions of other demographics such as the baby boomers who still wish to be "cool."