Brandweek has a profile piece on TiVo’s Karen Bressner, Senior VP of Advertising Sales. She joined TiVo in July after leaving her position as SVP for national advertising sales at Viacom International. She’s switched from selling ad spots to selling a complete advertising vision based on the TiVo platform.
Her biggest challenge is to show advertisers how they can lure someone who is attracted to the idea of fast forwarding through commercials. And to let those folks know that, well, there’s something interesting in there to watch.
“I’ve had to learn the touch points and what the different opportunities are with TiVo,” she said. “I have to know who our best potential clients are, and I’m learning. I know that we are natural for the auto marketplace, and the film industry.
“So I’m learning how we can apply to different categories. If I had to say there was a learning curve coming from Viacom, it was about engagement.”
Like it or not, advertising is a fundamental part of television. Someone has to pay the bills, and I doubt consumers want to pay several times what they pay today for cable or satellite to also cover all of the production costs for the content. So the market has to adjust to changing viewer habits to sustain that advertising revenue through innovation.
