Over the weekend while I was trawling the Virgin Media TiVo EPG (Electronic Program Guide) I saw the above Advertisement for the HTC One smartphones, in the recommendations bar. Although it does have a yellow 'A' in the top corner I would not say that this is clearly marked as advertising content. The appearance of this advertisement coincided with the advertising campaign on TV for the HTC One smartphones as well.
At the time I tweeted about it, suggesting that the advertising in the recommendations bar was ugly. @VirginMedia tweeted me back asking what I would like to see instead. If I want to see advertising, for physical goods, in the recommendation bar of the TiVo EPG then at least I want it to be socially aware and offer me recommendations as opposed to unintelligent product placement. Read on.
The reason I don't like the advertising in the Virgin Media TiVo EPG is that it is not a recommendation. It is a paid product placement that is not recommended to me based on a specific reason. Sure, to be fair, most of the recommendations in the recommendation bar in the TiVo EPG could be paid product placements but at least they are for television shows and not physical goods such as mobile phones. At least they have relevance to a television EPG. As an example when Virgin Media have a new show on a particular channel I think they are entitled to promote it via content management. This, at least, relates to television programming as opposed to promoting physical goods. As long as this content managed content is not too frequent, from my perspective, this is OK.
Virgin Media play a lot in their TiVo advertising, on TV as well as the starter pack you receive when you get TiVo, that they will recommend content to you based on the preferences that you tell them about. TV today demands a service like this as it is so hard to find content that you like in the overwhelming choice of channels. To tailor the TiVo recommendations towards things you will like, you can seed the system by telling TiVo what you like and dislike. This is done by selecting the 'good' thumbs up button, or using the thumbs down button to tell TiVo what you really dislike. There are even different levels of good - from one to three thumbs up. Based on these settings, recommendations should be made to me in the recommendation bar of the EPG. Not only this, but recommendations are automatically recorded for me to watch later.
The advertising, over the weekend, that appeared on the recommendation bar, appeared to have no relevance to my preferences as it simply tied in to the promotion that was happening on TV at the same time. Again it also had nothing to do with TV. I don't want advertising for physical goods clogging up the TV service that I use, especially when I pay to use the TV service! If my monthly fees for Virgin Media TV were subsidised by this advertising then it might be different! I think I would submit to advertising if my monthly bill was dropped accordingly. ;-)
Also if the advertising was based on my social network preferences, again it might be different. I.e. if these advertisements were served as recommendations based on what my friends and contacts were talking about on the social networks that I use, then they would have far more relevance to me. As I have previously mentioned though, I think that TiVo does suffer from a lack of social integration. I think services like zeebox will be far better placed to make use of social preferences, with respect to advertising, but that is another story!
So that is what I would like to see @VirginMedia. A tighter integration with TiVo into the social networks that I use, and if you have to have advertising in my EPG, either a discount on my monthly bill, or make the ads relevant to me based on my social networks. Thanks! ;-)
If I wanted unintelligent product placement I'd watch a Bond film!
More later.
Cheers
m
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