Charter Communications is setting the stage for interactive advertising by deploying FourthWall Media’s Ad Widgets in 800,000 digital homes across five markets.
Once FourthWall’s EBIF and SaFI-based widgets are in place, Charter will be able to provision VOD telescoping and request for information (RFI) campaigns with advertisers, as well as provide a framework for additional consumer-related interactive capabilities.
VOD telescoping provides an onscreen overlay that gives viewers the ability to use their remote to select and navigate to VOD to learn more about a product. The RFI option lets viewers request additional information on a product or service via mail, email, immediate phone call or mobile text message from an advertiser.
EBIF-based RFI campaigns were at the heart of MSO-owned Canoe Ventures before it decided to abandon its RFI platform earlier this year. Comcast, Cablevision, Time Warner Cable, and now Charter have continued on with their own advanced advertising campaigns in their respective footprints.
Once the rollout is completed, Charter Media will be able to tap into FourthWall’s Addressable Versioning, which helps Charter’s advertisers deliver different variations of commercial overlays to their specific customer segments during the same interactive spot on the same network.
Charter customers will also be able to take part in FourthWall’s polling and trivia widget.
In January, Charter upgraded about 1.6 million set-tops in nine of its systems so that they were EBIF-enabled, and it said it planned to upgrade another 1.9 million in its 15 remaining Motorola-based systems. Charter has worked with itaas on upgrading its systems for EBIF. Charter provisioned EBIF in its Cisco systems through its partnership with FourthWall.
