Communications Technology Sample Issue

Targeted Ads vs. Consumers

A panel of experts at Motorola‘s Video User’s conference in late September beat the drum of targeted advertising on the same day that a study appeared entitled “Americans Reject Tailored Advertising.”

The study was conducted by five scholars from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and the UC, Berkeley, Center for Law & Technology. It was based on telephone interviews with 1,000 adult Internet users in the United States during June and July.

“Contrary to what many marketers claim, most adult Americans (66 percent) do not want marketers to tailor advertisements to their interests, ” the report stated. “ Moreover, when Americans are informed of three common ways that marketers gather data about people in order to tailor ads, even higher percentages—between 73 percent and 86 percent—say they would not want such advertising. ”

But at the Motorola session, Michael Bologna, director emerging communications with media investment holding company GroupM, was hopeful: “If everybody receives the right message, commercial avoidance will go away. Brands like Ford and Coke pay half-a-million dollars for American Idol. In a targeted world, Ford could get the piece of the audience they want for much lower out of pocket.”

“Advertisers today are further down the

path of understanding how the interactive technology could work for them, ” said Mark Kaline, global media director, Kimberly-Clark. “My CPM may be $10 but the effective CPM may be $30 because I’m not reaching the audience.”

“We have to enable detailed collection across platforms, build visibility across platforms, ” said Bryan Santangelo, principal architect advertising, Time Warner Cable. “Three things we need: addressability, interactivity and data.”

It’s the data element that concerns consumers. The survey asked respondents how they felt about data gathered from their online browsing as well as from frequent shopper cards. Video providers are considering using data gathered from set-top-boxes.

Installer

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Keep it open, go slowly

One glimmer of hope for targeted advertising is that the survey found Americans like the idea of customizing ads, discounts and coupons for themselves as long as there is complete openness and transparency.

That will be just one more technical challenge for service providers who are betting on SCTE 130 and Canoe and Tru2way to help them evolve their advertising models.

The Motorola panelists agreed that the advertising evolution should happen gradually. “We’ve got to preserve our model. Don’t disrupt, ” said Santangelo. “The second thing that is key is standards in the industry.

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OpenRange Preps for Backhaul

Ceragon Networks, a provider of high-capacity wireless backhaul solutions, has announced it will partner with Alvarion as wireless backhaul equipment provider to deploy a network for Open Range Communications.

The new network is planned to be a Rural Utilities Service (RUS)-funded deployment in the United States, spanning 17 states, 546 rural communities, and reaching up to 6 million people.

Alvarion was recently selected as the WiMAX solution provider for the Open Range 4G network. Alvarion is also acting as the prime system integrator of the project. Cer-agon's high-capacity platforms will be used for backhauling rich voice and multimedia content over a newly constructed wireless IP network.