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*Could Addressable TV advertising lure food and drink advertisers back to TV? Packet Vision's Barry Llewellyn thinks it could ... * *With so many advertising restrictions facing food and drink brands, it’s no surprise that the latest report commissioned by the Department of Health into the advertising spend of food and drink brands shows a sharp drop in TV advertising spend: a 46% decline from 2003 through 2007. *

At the same time, spend on other media has increased as food and drink advertisers look for other opportunities to position their brands and impact sales. But while print, email and web marketing all lend themselves to a more tailored approach than TV could traditionally offer, the nature of TV advertising is changing in a way that will solve the problems of waste, relevancy and measurability.

A new TV delivery technology called IPTV is behind the change. Available in the UK, IPTV is reaching critical mass across Europe, and it’s not just some concept dreamed up in a lab. Big brand advertisers, including at least one fast food brand, have already used targeted advertising (also known as ‘addressable advertising’) to reach specific consumer groups more effectively.

IPTV’s addressable advertising capabilities mean that food and drink advertisers can, for the first time, segment TV viewing audiences in a highly granular way: by demographic groups, geographic locations down to street or town level or communities of interest for example.

This also means that specific audiences can be excluded, such as children, which will help advertisers meet Ofcom’s regulations and maintain high reach and impact advertising.

Relevance and measurability Since we're watching more TV than ever before, IPTV is good news for food and drink brands that really want to benefit from the reach and impact that TV advertising provides but with improved relevance and measurability.

Delivered via domestic broadband connections, usually to standard TV sets (it can also be delivered to PCs), IPTV provides a two-way communications stream enabling advertisers to measure viewership of their commercial on an actual home by home basis.

In the UK, there are several IPTV projects and networks. In other parts of Europe, particularly France, Spain and Sweden, IPTV is booming. Multimedia Research Group (MRG) estimates there will be more than 63 million IPTV subscribers by 2011, while Informa claims that there were already over 12 million by the end of 2007.

With IPTV, each destination has its own IP address, which is totally anonymous and in no way reveals the private data of the individual, but it does enable the broadcaster to target the information it delivers. This applies not just to programme content, but to advertising too.

For example, ads about alcohol could target households without children, and cereal brands could target households with adults over 45 with a high cholesterol cereal product.

Some food brands – Weetabix and Cadbury, among others – are already taking part in the world’s first large-scale addressable TV advertising project. Their targeted ads will run over Inuk’s Freewire IPTV service that delivers TV, broadband and phone services (a triple-play offer) to students in university halls of residence all over the UK.

The first stage of the project involves inserting student-targeted ads on Channel 4 when carried over Freewire. As the project rolls out, it will involve advertising to selected student audience groups based on gender, age, coursework, location or commercial behaviour.

The engagement factor The opportunity IPTV affords broadcasters means that, for the first time, the cost to reach a specified TV audience could be reduced as new demand for television airtime is created. This means it could be feasible for a small farm with organic sheep and goat produce to target families living within their distribution network of Hampshire.

Delivering targeted adverts in this way enables food and drink marketers to make ads that are more relevant. And while relevance may not be an end in itself, it's a major step towards increasing the engagement factor and reducing audience churn within a TV ad break.

The flexibility of addressable advertising over IPTV doesn't stop there. It can be used to connect to further information, such as a website, or linked to response mechanisms such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

Furthermore, since IP allows for return path data, it becomes possible to collect real-time information about which programmes or advertisements the individual TV or PC is tuned into at any one time, giving advertisers a rapid and accurate measuring tool.

Television delivered over IP may be in its infancy in the UK, but big food and drink brands and ad agencies are already beginning to explore its potential. With IPTV set to become more mainstream, together with its benefits of more targeted, cost-effective and measurable advertising, food and drink marketers have a useful new tool that will encourage them to continue to prioritise TV advertising.

Barry Llewellyn is VP Sales and Marketing of Packet Vision Ltd. He has 25 years' experience in TV, advertising airtime sales on a regional, national and pan-continental basis for ITV (UK) and MTV Europe (among others). Barry has also run international television channels with specific focus on marketing, press and PR, advertising sales, sponsorship and network development.