Automated Product Placement
Disruptive To World�s Most Powerful Medium
The roughly $50 billion spent last year on TV ads is at risk
because of the advent of commercial-skipping digital video
recorders, as well as the lure of the Internet and video-games. And
now technology is playing a role, enabling new business models to
displace the market that previously existed for the 30-second ad
spot.
Although product placement (estimated at $2 billion) is a
relatively small, ad hoc segment of advertising, it�s become the
focus of
NextMedium, a new company that automates and standardizes the
process of product placement in TV shows, movies, and video-games.
On their web site, movie studios, TV networks, and video-game
producers can upload excerpts of scripts or specific product
placement requests...without relying on agents who cut back-lot
deals.
Advertisers can search through the requests to evaluate and bid
on the available placement opportunities. Before a transaction is
completed, NextMedium�s site also allows for the director or other
creative professional to approve and sign off on each placement.
Then, in collaboration with Nielsen Media Research, NextMedium
will measure the exposure of that placement by determining how many
people saw it and how a brand�s total exposure compares with that of
competitors.
The beauty of product placement, a.k.a. brand integration, is
that viewers can�t TiVo past it because it�s part of the show, and
it lives on in any reruns or DVDs.
With this new technology, marketers can place a dozen placements
for every hour of television and potentially disrupt the most
powerful medium in the world...television ads.