The pay-TV group plans to offer broadcasters the ability to carry targeted advertising via their feeds on its satellite TV platform from 2011.
The company is developing what it terms targeted substitutional advertising, dubbed internally as Smart TV. The service will allow broadcasters to serve targeted ads to viewers in Sky+ homes, based on subscribers' personal and demographic characteristics.
Targeted ads are currently served around various TV and PC-based on-demand services in the UK (see box), but the BSkyB service would be the first time targeted ads can be served around linear TV content in the UK.
The service will use personal data gathered by Sky's research department and SkyView, its 20,000-strong audience panel, to target commercials to users' Sky+ boxes. The ads will then be dropped into ad breaks surrounding linear TV content.
Speaking at Thinkbox Televisionaries last week, Nick Milligan, managing director of Sky Media, said: "We hope to have Smart TV ready by 2011. Over the next couple of years, we intend to build a detailed database so we can drop targeted ads into regular TV ad breaks and develop a relationship with consumers.
He told Media Week: "The real challenge will be to make the triggers instantaneous so consumers don't realise the difference between a targeted ad and a general one. It has to be seamless."
The debate was part of The Future of Viewing session, during which Roisin Donnelly, corporate marketing director and head of marketing for Proctor & Gamble, called for such a service to be created that could target individuals.
_1.jpg)
.jpg)
