Beyond Watercooler Buzz

摘要

It has become a cliche that the goal for a TV ad is to generate watercooler talk. But when big media agency Carat met with three of the largest cable operators earlier this month to discuss plans for stepping up its interactive-TV-ad spending, the buzz was literally about, well, watercoolers. Specifically, how a Phoenix car dealer used them to get TV viewers to buy his cars. "Why watercoolers?" asked Mitch Oscar, executive VP of Carat Digital, when Tempe Hyundai announced that it was giving the units away to viewers who responded with a remote click after seeing one of the dealer's interactive TV ads. The explanation was simple: The Hyundai dealer had a surplus of them from a previous promotion that apparently flopped.