Comcast Brings Direct Response Advertising to TV



Direct Response Cable Television
Comcast is now selling products via a direct response advertising unit that appears at the bottom of a viewer's television screen. The advertisement pops up for a few seconds during a commercial and gives viewers an offer that they can accept or dismiss by using their remote control. (See the video above.)

My wife and I were offered a free brochure about visiting Scottsdale, Arizona and we elected to have one shipped to us by following the prompts on the screen with our remote. My wife had seen a direct response ad for a bottle of lotion the previous day. In that ad, she could have chosen to receive a bottle for $5. I can only assume that the $5 charge would have been added to our monthly cable bill.

We saw this new advertising unit at 7:45 p.m. on the SOAP network on a Wednesday and a Thursday. We have not seen it on any other channel or at any other time of day. We recorded the ad via our DVR, but when we played it back, the offer was not at the bottom of our screen.

Add This To Your To-Do List
Have you seen this new advertising unit? If so, I'd like to know the basic details about the offer that you saw. I am fascinated by new ways of advertising and I'd like to post more details to this blog. I will be contacting Comcast to see what they say about this new ad format. I guess that's just one more thing to add to my to-do list.

There's never a lack of ideas.

Comments

  1. JanoJanuary 21, 2011

    This is brilliant, especially if it starts to replace regular commercials by just doing in-program ads. This would be a great way to increase the value of product placement by immediately offering items that are being shown/used/worn in a show. I haven't seen anything like this from Dish Network yet, however I don't spend much time on the SOAP network so that could be why. Good find and great writeup.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Global TV ConceptsJanuary 27, 2011

    This is an interesting concept. This is a very straight forward way to get a response from people.

    ReplyDelete

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