9th November 2009
New ads will reflect what's happening in the big game.
Article from: The Australian Newpaper
Some time today, highlights of a US college football game being played on the website of sports broadcaster ESPN will suddenly trigger an ad directly related to what is happening on the screen.
It could be a touchdown or a fumble, but more importantly, what viewers will be seeing is the future of TV and online advertising, where the ads are driven directly by what is happening on the screen in real time, not booked weeks in advance by a media buyer.
The world-first technology driving the system was developed in Australia by a group of visionary sports fans. Demand Sport launches its Ad+Demand service with the ESPN ad. It will do so using the immense amount of statistical data that is gathered by sports around the globe to trigger ads during key moments of games and highlights.
And Perth-based Duane Varan, who 18 months ago set up an interactive TV laboratory in the US funded by ESPN's parent company Disney, has provided the research that has supported Demand Sport's push to have ads linked to the emotional moments that are crucial to the popularity of sport.
Demand Sport co-founder and CEO, Luke Reinehr, told Media the model was a simple one -- people have greater recall of advertising when it is closely tied to an emotionally fulfilling moment -- and sports provide such moments on an almost minute-by-minute basis.
The project could swiftly be extended to live TV and other genres ranging from entertainment to news. And the group has had preliminary discussions with a number of Australian media companies about applying the model locally.
"The whole concept is synchronising brand messages with a special moment in a game," Mr Reinehr said. "And our technology allows an advertiser to show different ads to different supporters at the same moment.
"For example, a brewery may show an upbeat ad to supporters when their teams scores and a 'commiseration' ad to opposition supporters at the same time."
The concept has been under development for the past three years, undergoing extensive trials in China before its official launch in the US this week.
Advisers to the project include former International Olympic Commission broadcast rights director Michael Payne, Neal Pilson, former president of CBS Sports in the US, and John Feenie, former head of Walt Disney China affairs and consumer products.
"There is an enormous amount of statistical information that is wrapped around these sports," Mr Reinehr said.
"It might be goals or home runs, but the thing about sport is it's very emotional and those statistics are actually recording emotional times in sport.
"We figured out if we could synchronise the metadata that surround sports and align it with a brand moment, it would be very positive."
The privately held company will not disclose how much it has cost to bring the Ad+Demand project to the point of launch, other than to say "many millions".
Mr Reinehr predicted the concept would potentially grow to replace pre-roll advertising that precedes many online video highlight products. "We are not selling advertising -- we are providing the tools for publishers to sell advertising in a more meaningful way," he said.
Initially, directors in the US will create highlight footage for ESPN's website before sending it to Melbourne, where statistical data will be laid underneath to provide the triggers for a variety of ads that have been sold by ESPN.
While advertisers have long been able to program advertising around events that are topical, such as the Superbowl and grand finals, they have never been able to program advertising related to on-field events in real time.
Mr Reinehr said Demand Sport had spoken to a range of sports broadcasters and organisations and said ESPN and its Disney parent had "very aggressively" wanted to partner it.
As a result, the Australian company was one of the first to use the US lab founded by Dr Varan, who is one of the world's leading researchers into the impact of interactive TV.
"For a user, aligning the brand message with an emotional time has a much higher recall and purchase probability impact," he said.
A version that could serve up contextual advertising on live TV could be operational as early as next year while the company was also working on other extensions of the Ad+Demand application.
When the system is released for live TV, he said, stock market reports could trigger ads that reflected the state of the market, while news programming could trigger ads related to news items.
However, Mr Reinehr said the company wanted to pursue the biggest market first because of the scale of the project.