Viggle and Opera Mediaworks have announced the launch of a new advertising product, ‘Add to DVR,’ that will allow consumers to add TV shows to their DVRs by clicking on a banner ad from their mobile devices.
The technology is adapted from Viggle’s Reminder technology and the ad unit communicates with a user’s DVR in real time to set up a recording. The unit allows advertisers to target potential viewers based on demographic, contextual content or social-media activity. A pilot campaign is in the works for a live event on a major TV network.
The first iteration of the ad unit is a full-page video interstitial hat ends with the “add to DVR” call to action. After users fill out a form with their ZIP code, email address, and cable service provider, the unit calls to the service provider and schedules the show.
“When DVRs were first introduced, they were seen as a threat to TV advertisers, because they allowed users to skip ads,” says Scott Swanson, President of Global Advertising Sales at Opera Mediaworks. “As with so many new technologies, however, the story isn’t over on the role DVR’s can play in advertising, and we see this as a tremendous opportunity. The Add-to-DVR ad unit enables networks to promote and drive consumers to view their programming easily, right from the ad itself. With a simple click on a banner advertisement, a user can engage Add-to-DVR to effectively initiate a ‘record’ button right then and there.”