TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator and leader in advertising solutions and television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced an upfront, multi-million dollar advertising agreement with Interpublic Media, which oversees the media services operations of the Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE: IPG), including Initiative, MAGNA Global, Universal McCann and a number of leading specialist media agencies.
“TiVo is pleased to have Interpublic Media as the first major advertising holding company to sign an upfront deal. This agreement further validates our commitment to the advertising industry and presents an opportunity for all of Interpublic’s clients to leverage TiVo’s DVR advertising to reach an attractive demographic,” said Tom Rogers, President and CEO of TiVo. “TiVo offers an interactive advertising solution that enables the consumer to pause television and engage in a branded advertising experience, without missing even a second of the TV show a viewer is watching. We are excited to expand our long-standing relationship with Interpublic and look forward to capitalizing on their intellectual capital, experience and relationships in the future.”
“Interpublic Media is committed to seeking out new opportunities to deliver maximum results for our clients, with return on investment for their media choices,” said Mark Rosenthal, Chairman and CEO, Interpublic Media. “Signing an upfront commitment with TiVo not only provides our clients with preferred pricing, but also provides us the opportunity to participate in the development and rollout of new advertising products.”The agreement was handled through Interpublic Media’s recently launched Emerging Media Lab. The Emerging Media Lab provides Interpublic’s clients with better understanding of new developments in emerging media and new technologies. Interpublic Media and its agencies will have the opportunity to offer any new clients or non-TiVo advertising clients preferred pricing for the term of the agreement.
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This is not Spam and neither is their product watch. No one is forcing ads down you throat, this is an opt in technology that you may choose to enjoy (by clicking a thumbs up during an ad) or not.
Spam is unsolicited email adverstisments and this doesn't even bare a passing resemblence to that. The only intrusion I see is that product watch may clutter your Tivo interface screens slightly.
Ok then lets call it Tivo-Spam; its still unsolicited information being forcefeed to my Tivo Harddrive. Sure Tivo says I can ff through the ads but who's to say Tivo wont disable that feature in the future. And if they did you cant do a thing about it per their terms of service.
I really hate seeing this called spam. That's needlessly inflamatory and negative. All advertising is not spam and that is not a useful mindset.
It isn't truly unsolicited since it is part of the service and you effectively asked for it by being a customer, just like any other service fully or partially ad funded. That's like calling ads in a magazine or newspaper unsolicited. And, of course, in the case of Product Watch they are solicited.
You also aren't being forced to watch the ads. If TiVo ever does that, and I don't believe that they will, then that's a different story. Chicken Little style comments like the one above are irrational. People have been saying things like this since TiVo had their very first promo. People were wailing about this over 4 years ago when I got my first TiVo - it still hasn't happened, and people are still wailing about it. Give it a rest. Slipperly slope arguments are generally pointless.