GET Real, Says GET Interactive

By Jim Barthold

When there's a struggle to build revenue, someone inevitably steps up to fill the moneybags. While technology companies such as Vyyo (formerly the Terayon part) and RGB Networks work with TV-specific models to insert unavoidable advertising onto screens, others such as GET Interactive enter the space from the Web and mobile side of the equation.

GET has developed an advertising platform that it claims delivers real-time consumer shopping directly into any video content, starting with the Web and mobile and moving to IPTV. The company's technology is reminiscent of Wink - only deeper - in that it places an icon on the screen as an invitation for viewers to dig more deeply and "shop" through advertisers' wares on Web sites. When a viewer opts to "GET Stuff," the programming pauses and the Web site opens.

"We created this branding platform for all these embedded products, and if you want further information or are interested in purchasing, you can click on that panel, and it takes you through the destination and brands to choose at that juncture," said Rick Harrison, CEO of GET Interactive. "That scenario can easily be applied in an IPTV situation as well."

Harrison is aware of how intrusive some Web, mobile and, increasingly, TV advertising can be. The goal, he said, is to make things "as unobtrusive as possible," so GET uses an "opt-in advertising platform. No consumer sees any of the ads for these products that are embedded in the video content until they choose to shop it."

Time is money

That's especially important in a mobile environment where no one willingly burns minutes watching unwanted advertising and on the Web where streaming ads and pop-ups have led to cottage industries in pop-up blockers and other background devices designed to zap these nuisances before they appear. IPTV is still virgin territory that can tap into new advertising models that linear networks can't touch.

"The 30-secod spot is dead," Harrison said. "That has repercussions in a variety of different areas. Obviously, that's the traditional revenue model for the cable guys, (and) people are skipping the ad; now what?"

His suggestion - and of course, this is all predicated on the eventual move of cable to some form of Web-based TV delivery - is to sell ad placements on products located throughout the content and let consumers chase what interests them.

"Part of the beauty of what we do is that everybody that participates makes new revenue streams," he said. "If you're a content provider ... shooting a music video, or you're the movie studio, now you make money on product placements. There's more inherent value in the placements. At the other end of the spectrum, any time a consumer opts in to shop that content, there are click-through fees originated any time a consumer's delivered to a brand's destination."

Happy days?

It's advertising nirvana.

"Content providers make money: the people that develop the content itself plus the cable companies or the wireless providers. Whoever brings the consumer to the brand participates in the click-through revenue," he said. "It could be a catalyst for change in the model."

It could also be technology to the rescue of the programmers - again - leaving them to do what they do best: give away hot tsotchkes at trade shows.

- Jim Barthold