Advanced Advertising
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
CT'S INSIDE ADVANCED THIS ISSUE Arris to BlackArrow, ....page 4 Cisco to Harmonic, .......page 5 ADVERtisiNG itaas to Sigma, ............page 6 TECH GUIDE Tandberg to Zodiac, .....page 7 February 2009 Cable Bets on a Complex Weapon By Jonathan Tombes, editor The forecast for the cable growing from $5 billion to $10 collaborate and leverage their 'We've talked about this and industry's advanced advertis- billion by 2015 is reasonable.) combined footprint. had committees, we've had ing initiative is mixed. But grow it will, for several There lies a third reason this beakers bubbling with smoke In a Pike & Fischer report reasons. First, the category plays category will grow: It has to. in the labs for years. Get it issued last November, Chief to the industry's core compe- "While Cox can offer its outside of the white cloaked Analyst Tim McElgunn pointed tence in video. Second, cable's products in front of around 6 lab room and get it out into the to reduced spending across all advertising and technology has million households...for national real marketplace, and it has to media, online competition and advanced steadily for decades. advertisers, they need to have happen now,'" Delzio said. privacy protections as impedi- In the early 2000s, when pro- a solution that gets to around Up front have been two ments to rapid growth. gram insertions became digital 20-30 million households," main technologies, said McElgunn noted the "immense and MSOs began exploiting the Porter said. Sigma Systems VP Product complexity" of creating the two-way capabilities of their Management Rick Mallon: cam- new platform embraced by systems, the pace picked up. URGENCY paign management systems Canoe Ventures and the "Cox and several other cable As ARRIS Director Product and ad decision managers. challenge of wielding it as a operators (in recent years) have Strategy Paul Delzio sees it, In the former group, disruptive weapon against deployed our own advanced cable has always had an annual Mallon put Tandberg, OpenTV, ingrained advertising tactics. advertising technologies," said list of priorities, with advertising Microsoft, SeaChange, Invidi David Porter, VP of strategy typically making the top 10, but and BlackArrow. The latter, he WORK TOGETHER and business development for not top-five agenda. said, typically included vendors Tripling cable's advertising Cox Media. But over the past three closer to network devices, such revenue over the next several But competition has put years, competitive and bud- as splicers. years—a goal associated with brakes on the going-it-alone getary threats have made it a Another element is the ad Canoe executives—may be approach. Online advertising in must-do item. decision server. "It sits in the ambitious. (Pike & Fischer think particular has forced MSOs to "The mood is now like, continued on page 3 Rationally Exuberant for Advanced Ads Q&A WITH PAUL WOIDKE Paul Woidke chairs the SCTE's CT his grounds for optimism off. What do you say? things that can go wrong in DVS Working Group 5 on on the business and technol- Well, it's the cable indus- the whole Canoe area. But as digital program insertion (DPI). ogy of advanced advertising. try. We've seen things as far as revenue streams go, He currently serves as SVP and successful as CableLabs, as I think that the industry recog- general manager, advanced Skeptics are wondering if lackadaisical in implementa- nizes the importance of adver- advertising, for OpenTV. cable—specifically, the Canoe tion as OCAP, as imploding tising. There's a real serious Woidke recently shared with joint venture—can really pull this as @Home. Sure, there are continued on page 8 NEW AD WEAPONS continued from page 1 CableLabs Interop middle of this intelligent brain based on household income." ... (and) is busy all the time," That's just the first step. In November, CableLabs (3) ad insertion technologies Mallon said. Doubling up on targeting crite- hosted an addressable adver- such as insertion of ads into Sigma itself is new to this ria would be next, and so on. tising event at its laborato- VOD inventory. business, having leveraged its Beyond targeting, Canoe ries in Louisville, CO. Fifteen In addition to testing in the back-office expertise to fill one and MSO partners have put companies involved in the devel- context of SCTE 130, partici- of the three roles for infor- enhanced TV applications on opment of advanced adver- pants also tested products with mation services specified by deck, although expect to wait. tising technologies attended CableLabs' enhanced television SCTE 130: that regarding sub- "EBIF and tru2way still have the event. (ETV) enhanced binary inter- scriber information. some work on it," said Delzio. CableLabs and the participat- face format (EBIF) standard. The other two services "It's still 12 months away." ing vendors used SCTE 130 CableLabs created EBIF to involve placement opportunity Of course, each of Canoe's standards as the framework promote uniform TV interactiv- and content. six founding partners will for this interoperability event. ity across multiple platforms. These sources of informa- adopt technologies at its own SCTE 130 is the cable indus- Products included adver- tion are key. "There is a real pace and according to some- try's emerging technical stan- tisement campaign managers, focus on data," said Craig what divergent agendas and dard for advanced advertising. advertising decision servers Schwabl, Concurrent chief infrastructures (e.g. Comcast Don Dulchinos, SVP architect, strategic technol- NGOD vs. Time Warner ISA.) of advanced platforms at ogy. "Canoe continues to say Then there's on-demand. Cable-Labs, said 15 vendors that data is important." "In 2009, you'll find a decent was a larger-than-expect- number of operators going ed number of companies AGENDA to trial with VOD ad insertion developing addressable To help prove out the inter- capabilities," said Schwabl. advertising products that faces linking these elements, Cablevision has itself moved implement SCTE 130. CableLabs in Louisville, CO CableLabs hosted an interop- ahead aggressively with "More work had been erability event last November. branded VOD channels, a sep- done than expected," he said. and information systems that "The SCTE spec is so com- arate initiative. The companies that par- support subscribers, organize plex, there are so many pieces to Like branded VOD, other ticipated in the addressable content and define advertising it, that there was a need to exer- tasks are outside purview of advertising event were Arris, placement opportunities. cise these in a vendor interop SCTE 130, such as HD. "The BIAP, BlackArrow, Concurrent The event closed with ven- forum," said Schwabl. (For more challenges in HD splicing are Computer, Ensequence, Front dors demonstrating an end- on CableLabs, see sidebar.) specific and unique," said Gal Porch, INVIDI, Microsoft to-end process whereby an With CableLabs engaged, Garniek, AVP of marketing for Advertising, Motorola, OpenTV, advertisement can be select- and SCTE 130 near comple- Scopus Video Networks. Sigma Systems, Tandberg ed, inserted into a program- tion, it remains for MSOs—and But for Canoe to approach Television, This Technology, ming stream and delivered to their Canoe counterparts—to its lofty goals, MSOs and their UniSoft Corp. and Visible World. a digital TV customer. begin pulling triggers. vendor partners clearly need There are three categories of CableLabs plans to host First up for Canoe is what's to move beyond the lab on addressable advertising being more confabs in 2009, pos- called creative versioning. "Right some of these technologies. developed, explained Dulchinos: sibly one that again tests SCTE there for the most part there's "They have got to get those (1) more addressable ads with 130 interfaces, and at least one one version of a spot," said Cox's systems in place in order to finer grain, geographical target- gathering focusing on end-to- Porter. "What Canoe is going to offer up those subscribers for ing, etc.; (2) interactive ads that end system testing of ads, offer is to then subdivide that targeting," said Mallon. customers can click on; and Dulchinos said. editorial design/production editor Jonathan Tombes graphic designer Tzaddi Andoque [email protected] senior production manager John Blaylock-Cooke managing editor Ron Hendrickson [email protected] Access Intelligence associate editor Linda Hardesty, 4 Choke Cherry Road, 2nd Floor, [email protected] Rockville, Maryland 20850 2 Arris (www.arrisi.com) Product Application Key Features SkyVision HQ Central element of the Communicates with the management console (SkyVision), the traffic and billing systems, the content ad insertion system sources (encoder and archive), transcoder components, and the ad control manager Insertion server. HQ SNAPSHOT Backup server Collection of software modules that run on two matching Headquarters (HQ) computers: a software master HQ and clone HQ; HQ Snapshot provides a 'warm spare' backup of the master HQ that can be brought online in minutes in case of a catastrophic failure; current ad spots, HQ configuration, and system information are backed up from the master HQ to the clone HQ; if the master HQ goes down, the clone HQ takes over ad insertion operations. Ad Control Manager DPI software GigE digital program insertion connects the company's video server and linear advertising (ACM) management software; provides high system availability, enhanced error detection capabilities, high scalability (enabling 120 to over 2,000 channels per server) and automatic dynamic recovery for single points of failure; promotes reduced maintenance costs and high reliability. Virtual Interconnect Scheduling Allows cable operators to merge schedules from up to 10 different owners, working in partner- (VIC) software ship as a Virtual Interconnect Company; vendor neutral; incorporates intelligent rules-based merging that identifies conflicts and generates (partner-specific) detailed reports, allowing operators to resolve schedule conflicts before airtime.