The ‘ad blocker’ for which agencies had fear and loathing was eventually going to be their best friend, I used to say years ago. When TiVo launched, it looked like the end-of-days for advertising had come to pass, but when you peeled back the layers of DVR, it was evident that the consumer being in control (and being able to skip past commercials) was only one part of the equation. The digital interface was also the best tracking device at that time, and smart advertisers were able to see that this was another way to identify viewer behavior.

So the news that TiVo has signed up with Universal McCann (nicely coinciding with the news that the Up-fronts are not so important anymore) gives us an insight into where television’s going. There’ll come a time soon when very creative media buys and interactive campaigns could use the very DVR technology. Remember how KFC used a secret code in commercials only viewable when played back in slow motion?

Now imagine this in the IPTV era. We would probably be able to create advertising that requires the viewer to use time shifting to the advantage of the advertiser as well –say saving a commercial that would have embedded codes or links to microsites that would only be valid in a week. These rich-media stories (we won’t call them commercials anymore) would create a high level of audience participation that would have never been possible without TiVo-like devices.