Interactive TV ITV

Interactive TV (ITV) lets viewers interact with television programming and advertising using their remote controls. In the past, ITV has been slow to catch on. However, the technology now appears poised take off as a direct marketing medium. A recent poll indicated that 66 percent of viewers would be "very interested" in interacting with commercials that piqued their interest.32 And satellite broadcasting systems such as DIRECTV, EchoStar, and Time Warner are now offering ITV capabilities.

Interactive TV gives marketers an opportunity to reach targeted audiences in an interactive, more involving way. For example, shopping channel HSN recently developed a "Shop by Remote" interactive TV service that allows viewers to immediately purchase any item on HSN using their remote. Procter & Gamble ran interactive ads for its Tide to Go detergent brand. The 30-second TV spots contained remote control links giving interested consumers instant access to more information about the product, as well as coupons and the opportunity to enter a sweepstakes to win a trip to an amusement park. Similarly, Nike's "Quick Is Deadly" campaign for its Zoom training-shoe line included more than 20 minutes of interactive content accessible to Dish Network subscribers with DVRs.33

Dish DVR users were able to click into 30- and 60-second TV spots starring [American football star] San Diego Chargers running back LaDanian Tomlinson and other fleet-footed Nike athletes. Nike gave them the option to view interview footage of the football star discussing his exhaustive training regimen, footage of Tomlinson's signature spin move in different speeds, a Nike-branded game designed to test viewers' remote-control reflexes, and a three-dimensional demo of the Zoom shoe. Nike made similar interactive content available in ads featuring several other Nike endorsers, including basketball's Steve

Nash, runner Lauren Reshman, Olympic sprinters Asafa Powell and Sanya Richards, and tennis player Rafael Nadal. Using zip-code information in each Dish unit, users were also able to find stores carrying the shoe at the click of a button. The campaign stopped short of actually letting viewers buy the shoes directly from their sets, although the technology enables that function. Research shows that the level of viewer engagement with interactive TV is much higher than with 30-second spots. "We've gotten to the point where all media needs to be interactive," says a creative director at Nike's advertising agency.

Mobile phone marketing, podcasts and vodcasts, and interactive TV offer exciting direct marketing opportunities. But marketers must be careful to use these new direct marketing approaches wisely. As with other direct marketing forms, marketers who use them risk backlash from consumers who may resent such marketing as an invasion of their privacy. Marketers must target their direct marketing offers carefully, bringing real value to customers rather than making unwanted intrusions into their lives.

Online Marketing (PP 528-541)

As noted earlier, online marketing is the fastest-growing form of direct marketing. Recent technological advances have created a digital age. Widespread use of the Internet is having a dramatic impact on both buyers and the marketers who serve them. In this section, we examine how marketing strategy and practice are changing to take advantage of today's Internet technologies.

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