Jason Kilar and Other Observations at AdTech 2009 in SF

Attended AdTech 2009 in San Francisco yesterday. Very well-run show - well-laid out. A lot of room to move around, though, this year.

Asked Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu, after his keynote, whether they would pursue any interactive TV advertising opportunities (interactive overlays, hotspotting, etc.) in light of the fact that it was well known that brand advertising associated with broadband tv sites had limited effectiveness. He discounted this observation and then went on about something, but it didn't sound like they were ready to embrace ITV concepts or technologies yet. I could be wrong, but I didn't hear anything specific at the time. 

If so, Hulu (for as much muscle as they have) will ultimately be marginalized by other services (even the dreaded boxee) that have more of an aggressive, proactive open API and widgetized stance with regards to broadband ITV opportunities. Or, perhaps they will always do well because they own the big content? Probably. But, for those of us that don't watch mainstream content (and there are more of those people every day cutting the cord), they will turn elsewhere.

He did mention that they broadcast an interactive commercial for Coke.  Here it is below (so maybe there's hope). Apparantly, viewers could select which commercial they wanted to view: Coke, Diet Coke, or Sprite. Wonder what data they collected there? Did people pursue this ad or bypass it?

Also, in the room, were 2 people well known in our community: Seth Shapiro of New Amsterdam Media and Bill Niemeyer of billniemeyer.tv.  We three felt that Kilar was not seeing the obvious ITV-enabled opportunity, but had to admit that he might not have to see it because he was so capitalized with or without actual profits.  You never know what small company will emerge from nowhere to usurp the market.

Great seeing you guys!

-- Tracy