Great article in Fast Company in the April 2006 edition on Cheap TV Advertising. The article focuses on two guru’s Nick Grouf and David Waxman who are overhauling the TV ad business using the Internet. Here are some take-aways:
1. David and Nick started Firefly and PeoplePC before starting their latest venture Spot Runner – an ad service that lets businesses buy TV ad production at killer rates, slap on a logo, determine budget, and target market all on the internet. How killer are there cheap rates? They charge $499 to produce an ad compared to the average cost of $300,000 to produce an ad.
2. Some are calling it “Google Adwords for TV”. Making it easy for anyone to advertise.
3. They can target right down to the neighborhood through algorithms they partly developed in their previous ventures Firefly (which was sold to Microsoft) and PeoplePC (which was sold to EarthLink).
4. They plan to eventually sell and place ads for mobile TV, TV on the Web, and IPTV.
Not everyone is happy, and in a somewhat stubborn response, one VP of a large ad firm said “I’m a million times smarter than that…that computer. You can’t replace gut instinct. That comes from experience.” Um, can we say Apple’s and Oranges? Her response was to how their process works and what it does in bringing costs down for Cheap TV Advertising. Of course, some people also wondered if the Search Engine way of advertising would do as well as it did.
