Currently, interactive advertising - where viewers click on a button during a TV ad and are taken to an advertiser's site - is available via the SkyDigital platform on Sky's channels, on Flextech Telewest channels such as Bravo and joint venture channels such as UK Gold, and on Channel 4. Advertisers can also have interactive sites on the digital cable platforms, although as yet it is not possible to access these from a TV ad.
However, even within the SkyDigital platform, competing technologies exist. For example, advertisers wishing to screen interactive ads on a Sky channel or Flextech Telewest channels only have to buy one 'destination site'. Viewers who click on that advertiser's interactive ad are taken to the same site, regardless of whether they see the ad on a Sky channel or a Flextech Telewest channel.
But advertisers wishing to screen interactive ads on Channel 4 have to buy a separate destination site, which cannot be accessed by viewers on other channels.
According to Sky, the cost of a destination site can range from £5000 to £100,000. As other broadcasters prepare to launch interactive ads, advertisers could find the price of interactive ads rising steeply. "We need similar functionality across all broadcasters or else there is a risk of the market for interactive advertising fragmenting, making the individual pieces too expensive," said Chippendale.
Chippendale reiterated calls for the TV industry to get together to promote the benefits of TV - such as interactive advertising - against other media such as direct marketing. He said that 25% of last in-break ads on Sky channels are now interactive ads and that interactive TV campaigns such as recent activity for Rimmel lipstick have delivered a much higher response rate than campaigns in other media.
His comments come after Sky confirmed that Dawn Airey, the new managing director of Sky Networks, had promoted Chippendale to the role of advertising sales director from deputy director of sales.
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