Forget the shotgun approach. Cable television operators may soon be able to offer advertisers the ability to send messages targeted to homes that match a specifically identified demographic.
According to a New York Times report, Cablevision will soon be able to "route ads" to selected homes based on a variety of predetermined criteria including income, ethnicity, gender, children and pets. The cable system will test the technology in half a million homes located in Brooklyn, the Bronx and parts of New Jersey.
"We have, as an industry, been talking about this since the beginning of time," Matt Seiler, the global chief executive of Universal McCann, told the Times. "Now we've got it in 500,000 households. This is real."
Cablevision tested the concept with its own ads. The result after eight months was that targeted messages enabled the system to sign up new subscribers for its services at a significantly higher rate than untargeted spots.
Discussion Questions: Will the type of targeting that will apparently be offered by Cablevision result in significantly more advertising dollars flowing back to television? What will the potential of this type of targeting capability mean for consumer brand marketers and retailers?