Interactive Ads Successful for Cablevision

Cablevision Systems has announced the break out results for its latest interactive advertising product, Optimum Select, which offers customers a gateway from the 30-second commercial for longer engagement with a brand. Optimum Select enables digital cable customers to immediately respond to commercials through their TV remote control.

The initial launch campaigns conducted throughout Fall 2009 included the following advertisers: Gillette, Benjamin Moore, retailer Century 21, Halls, Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive Company. Each of these campaigns, which delivered samples and other promotional materials to viewers who requested the items by pushing the “SEL” button on their TV remote control when prompted during a 30-second commercial, were scheduled to run for two weeks but ended in an average of half the time, due to high demand.

“The launch of Optimum Select has been a resounding success, marking a defining moment in interactive television,” said David Kline, president of Rainbow Advertising Sales Corporation, Cablevision and Rainbow Media’s advertising sales unit, in a statement. “We’ve recently begun working with local advertisers in the travel, tourism and healthcare industries on Optimum Select RFI campaigns and have seen comparable results."

The conversion rate for leads, with the initial Optimum Select RFI campaigns, increased steadily beginning with 40 percent and reached a height of more than 70 percent with the most recent Colgate-Palmolive campaign. The conversion rate is defined as the percentage of consumers who, after pushing the “SEL” button in response to the commercial, completed the process by again pressing “SEL” to receive the specific item being offered.

In December, Cablevision introduced the second phase of Optimum Select – Optimum Select Content Saving, which provides the ability for consumers to save long form video assets in response to a request for more information. The saved content will be available to consumers immediately and accessed easily from a consumer’s personal Optimum Select folder. This folder is available directly from the main iO TV menu with the push of the iO button and also online at www.optimum.net.

Optimum Select is accessible to Cablevision’s nearly 3 million iO TV digital customers with an interactive digital set-top box.