Time Warner To Test Behavior-Targeted TV Ads

"Time Warner Cable will soon begin testing a system designed by software firm Invidi Technologies that uses the digital set-top cable box to track what each TV in any house has on. It's expected to go into a household test by year end, with other cable companies following in 2006. By analyzing where a viewer channel surfs, Invidi says the system can figure out the age, gender, and probable interests of the viewer. Most important, the system then matches TV ads to the consumer based on what might actually interest them."
-- Business Week

Also see a related blog post by a Business Week editor David Kiley.

Earlier:
Yahoo Tests Behaviour-Targeted Text Ads

Whiteboards Turn Smart

Wired: "All across the country, chalkboards are being ditched in favor of interactive, computer-driven whiteboards that allow students and teachers to share assignments, surf the web and edit video using their fingers as pens." These things are now installed in more than 150,00 U.S. classrooms. Manufacturers: Numonics, PolyVision, Promethean, Smart Technologies.

With schools selling ad space on school buses and collecting money for naming rights, it must be only a matter of time till they let advertisers play commercials on the smartboards. I'd say this will work great for negative campaigning. I can see Pepsi (or Coke) running a sponsorship jingle "This boring math problem was brought to you by that other cola drink."

Ogilvy To Test Email Campaigns with Eyetrackers

Adverblog: "Ogilvy has signed a deal with Eyetools to test email campaigns by looking at what people look or ignore. Using a camera embedded in the monitor, OgilvyOne will follow eye movement patterns of people reading commercial email." Check out Eytools' blog, too.

Study: Podcast Audience to Reach 56M by 2010

"Researchers at the Diffusion Group predicted this week that the U.S. podcast audience will climb from 840,000 last year to 56 million by 2010. By that time, three-quarters of all people who own portable digital music players will listen to podcasts, up from less than 15 percent last year, the digital entertainment research group said."
--CNET via Urban Intelligence

Talking Wine Labels

Reuters writes about an Italian winery that is about to put talking labels an all of its bottles. The labels, consisting of a chip implanted in the bottle, could be listened to with a small device about the size of a cigarette pack in the wine shop. The content varies from music to wine's history. Labels designed by Modulgraf.
--via Gizmodo

Earlier:
Voice Advertising For Bathrooms
Sound Inserts in Print Ads
Talking Packaging
Talking "Post-it" Button
Musical Greeting Cards
Talking POS: Spy Voice Trap

Fingernail Data Storage

"Secure optical data storage could soon literally be at your fingertips thanks to work being carried out in Japan. Yoshio Hayasaki and his colleagues have discovered that data can be written into a human fingernail by irradiating it with femtosecond laser pulses."
-- Optics.org

iPod-vertising Challenges

"Apple's integration of podcasting into its iTunes software has propelled the grassroots movement into the mainstream, but marketers say there are challenges to overcome before ad dollars begin pouring into podcasters' pockets. Among those challenges are finding ways of measuring listening and of efficiently buying ads on a medium that has so far been made up of small, fragmented audiences."
-- ClickZ

Earlier:
iPodvertising Possibilities
Podcasting: Advertising on iPod

Study: Shoppers Recall In-Store Audio Ads

A new Arbitron study shows that 55% of shoppers recall commercials heard while shopping. The study is available in pdf form and shows many other things as well.
-- via Adverblog

Future: Multi-Blade Screen Technology

"Here's the seriously trippy part about the new screen, which Deep Light plans to introduce at next winter's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas: multiple "blades" of video enable one screen to show different programs to different viewers, at the same time." They are also making multiplexing screens that display 3-D without anaglyph glasses.
-- NY Times

Voice Advertising For Bathrooms

One more entry into our arsenal of toilet advertising tactics - the talking roll holder (around $30 in British money). "The Talking TP works very simply. Hit the record button, leave a suitable message such as “we’re trying to conserve paper, please use both sides!” and then place inside a toilet roll. When the paper is pulled, your message bleats out via a concealed in-built speaker."
-- T3 via Gizmodo

Earlier:
Talking "Post-it" Button