Media and Marketing Chair: Dr Duane Varan

A revolution in television advertising through digital television may soon just be a click on a remote control away, and Murdoch’s Media and Marketing Chair Dr Duane Varan believes that the implications have not yet been fully realised by advertisers.

The onset of digital television in January could potentially induce radical change in the structure of television advertising, with a multitude of technical possibilities to manipulate the audience’s new interactive role.

To gain an insight into the future success of advertising through this medium, Dr Varan, his students and a collaborative team of Murdoch researchers are embarking on a four month pilot study that will investigate audience reaction to the new technology by simulating digital TV with interactive DVD video.

“In our experiments we will expose audiences to the digital television experience. Only then can we really explore, in any meaningful way, the services that audiences will either accept or demand,” said Dr Varan.

“The control has shifted to consumers who will be able to bypass advertising in digital TV, but advertisers can use the new technology to focus on the needs of narrower target audiences.”

This study will enable Dr Varan to examine the implications of the full range of technologies available to advertisers such as the importance of high resolution in improving advertising effectiveness, and the use of interactive features.

Dr Varan explained that by just clicking a remote control, viewers could choose the type of selling pitch they were exposed to on their televisions and could instantly receive extra information about interesting products.

The technology enables advertisers to substantially improve distribution efficiencies by tailoring advertisements more specifically to each household.

“Advertisers will now have the capabilities to create a bilingual cultural resonance with viewers by supplying screening options in different languages,” said Dr Varan.

“Digital TV will also solve the problems created by over exposure to advertisements.

“Advertisers schedule ads so that optimal exposure levels can be guaranteed – in other words, so that each home sees the ad roughly three times.

“But to do this, heavy viewers of television may see the ad perhaps as many as 20 times – and at some stage the ad is probably actually having a negative effect on such viewers.”

Murdoch is also pioneering research that will enable digital television sets to keep track of the number of times a particular ad has played in a home and automatically roll over to an alternative version once it has hit optimal exposure.

Dr Varan explained that the Murdoch research team was also interested in addressing the social policy concerns associated with this sort of technology, such as the potential to invade people’s privacy.

Although digital TV has the potential to bring advertising up to a new level of sophistication, Dr Varan fears that tight restrictions will impede its progress.

“The biggest problem in Australia is that the government is legislating the digital TV landscape without input from the advertisers, so long term strategies that will support an effective business model are not being implemented,” said Dr Varan.

“If digital TV is too restricted, the only benefit to viewers will be better reception. We have to give the medium a chance to evolve.

“Digital TV is not the only interactive path into the home, and if viewers choose the broadband Internet as an alternative, the overseas content will increase to the detriment of Australian programming.”