In a deal that brings AdForce Inc. into the world of interactive television, the CMGI-owned firm on Wednesday agreed to manage and serve advertisements for Set-Top.com, a maker of set-top box products and services.
The deal calls for AdForce to manage, target, and deliver banner ads to Web-TV Plus set-top boxes. It’s a first-generation technology, and is currently available to a limited number of viewers, but it’s one of the first experiments with introduce advertising to interactive TV.
The idea is that television programmers and advertisers can use the ads to promote programs that are currently playing, or upcoming programs. Users who click on the banner ad will be transported to the channel being advertised.
“With this alliance, AdForce will be able to explore a whole new form of advertising,” said Chuck Berger, chief executive officer of AdForce.
“‘Click-For-TV’ will give AdForce the opportunity to extend its reach to television programmers and advertisers and make it possible for them to target the increasing number of viewers that are using the Internet via the TV as a prime source of entertainment.”