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Backchannelmedia Demonstrates Revolutionary Platform Linking Television Advertising and Content to the Internet
Internet to Be Used as the Back-End for Consumers to Deepen Their Engagement With Brands and Content in a Seamless Experience
| Source: Backchannelmedia
BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - December 19, 2007) - Backchannelmedia Inc., a Boston-based digital
television ad serving and response capture company, today announced that
the Company has passed a key technical milestone for their revolutionary
television platform. Backchannelmedia has successfully demonstrated the
first televised click-through where a viewer can interact through a
standard TV remote control with a television advertisement and
automatically, securely and seamlessly pass the viewer product or content
interest into an e-commerce site hosted outside the television platform and
linked to the viewer's personal home page web site ("the Internet
back-end"). The company also announced they will begin trials of the
technology, which has been under development for 10 years in anticipation
of the 2009 digital conversion, with at least one major market affiliate
during Q2 of 2008.
With Backchannelmedia's patented technology, a viewer watching a live TV
show or a recorded show from a DVR -- without interrupting the viewing
experience -- will be able to click and transfer information in
advertisements or content directly to a personal and customizable home page
set up by the viewer and hosted on the Internet outside of the television
platform, similar in look and feel to many of the Internet's popular home
page web sites. Products can then be ordered securely through the viewer's
existing favorite web sites in a familiar and safe environment, and content
can be downloaded, purchased, bookmarked and/or viewed on the web with the
simple click of one button on the TV remote. For example, a viewer could
see a popular recording artist perform on television and then through one
click of their remote control could either bookmark the CD in Amazon or
immediately download the song from a digital music site, thus capturing the
value of the transaction for all parties to enjoy. As a result, television
advertisers and broadcasters will know who is responding to their
advertising dollars and broadcasts, precisely who is shopping from their
web sites based on television exposure and immediately improve upon
campaigns, and link advertisers' traditional and digital advertising
budgets forever.
"Our solution solves the riddle of getting consumers content where and when
they want it," said Dan Hassan, Co-CEO of Backchannelmedia.
"Backchannelmedia will become the definition of advertiser engagement, as
moving consumer interest from TV directly to the linked Internet back-end
satisfies Madison Avenue's desire to deliver integrated marketing messages
tailored for the consumer. In addition, broadcasters and advertisers will
be able work together to determine the appropriate TV click through rates
free from today's limiting online text link auction environment."
The Backchannelmedia solution was designed to work with the vast majority
of all e-commerce, content web sites, and video portals that already reside
on the World Wide Web. The solution requires minimal configuration of the
technical environment for broadcast television stations and cable networks
and can work with most television media buying software already installed
at thousands of advertising agencies and advertisers.
Backchannelmedia's four extensive patent pending applications were designed
to leverage existing technologies such as the TV remote and broadcast and
cable automation systems to bring accountability to television advertising.
This "consumer opt-in" solution was designed to build upon the relevancy of
the television platform, which the Company believes is the backbone of the
nation's communications infrastructure, by insuring that Internet design
challenges such as click fraud, dead and irrelevant search links, copyright
theft, spam, phishing, and blind behavioral targeting will not cross over
into the wireline and wireless digital television spectrum delivery
platforms. Backchannelmedia's intuitive consumer touch point bridges the
gap between the TV and Internet worlds through the "tagging" or
"bookmarking" of TV content and moves both platforms towards addressability
and accountability.
"The system has been carefully designed to not only utilize the broadcast
digital spectrum with a return path outside the cable infrastructure, but
future Backchannelmedia deployments will also leverage the cable plant's
switched digital environment, as we continue to be proactive in tackling
new industry platforms," said Michael Kokernak, Co-CEO of Backchannelmedia
and the primary inventor of the system.
Demonstrations of the system are now being conducted at Backchannelmedia's
Boston-office and engineering facility by invitation only. The company is
currently building several "broadcast and cable head-end in a box"
transportable demonstration devices and expects to be hosting week long
educational meetings at conference centers in New York City and Los Angeles
sometime during Q3 of 2008.
About Backchannelmedia Inc.
Boston-based Backchannelmedia Inc. was founded in 2000 with the belief that
television advertising should become accountable. According to Erwin
Ephron, the father of modern media planning, Backchannelmedia offers "an
interactive TV advertising model that provides better targeting and
immediate feedback to a message. Both make TV a far more attractive selling
tool." Backchannelmedia's model is backed by four extensive patent
applications, as well as several proprietary Web applications including
Backchannelmedia Research. Backchannelmedia Research is the first
generation "TV click to the web" media buying and analyzing software
application and currently it offers media planners the most comprehensive,
free Web-based planning tool available today with approximately 450,000
monthly visitors accessing over 1.5 Million pages of television research on
a monthly basis as well. The Company since the year 2004 has published
"Backchannelmedia Connected" a 22,000 subscriber daily industry newsletter
tracking the digital conversion and television advertising in general.
Backchannelmedia is currently designing a complete "continuous loop" system
that merges direct marketing, Internet advertising, and television
advertising industries into one platform driven by automated, optimized
targeting and actual television consumer response results. The Company
believes that as digital television morphs into a blended mass media and
opt-in direct marketing vehicle consumers will benefit through greater
video channel selection, increased digital consumer privacy controls,
increased high definition television content, increased competition among
the multichannel providers, as well as eventually lower prices for
multichannel video services. Thus Backchannelmedia's patent pending
approach to video and advertising delivery will over the next five to seven
years satisfy the underlying drivers of the Telecommunications Act of 1996
which have been to stimulate competition, choice, and competitive pricing
for consumers in regards to multichannel video providers and communications
in general.
Backchannelmedia anticipates launching a closed over-the air-trial of the
technology through a limited number of digital television stations and
content providers during the second quarter of 2008. The solution was
designed to work with most technologies already installed within the
nation's broadcasting and cable facilities as well as work with current
advertising industry work processes thus insuring a clear path to
conversion of the United States television platform to include the "TV
click to the Web" consumer touch point as well as open up scores of new
revenue opportunities for broadcasters and advertisers. The company is
privately funded with $9.5 Million raised to date through a seed round.
For more information, please visit www.backchannelmedia.com.