Now showing on TV: Ads that turn into links to web sites

Backchannelmedia Inc., a provider of Internet-TV technology and services, is rolling out tests in several hundred homes that let television viewers click a TV remote to e-mail themselves a link to an e-commerce page featuring a product advertised on their TV screen.

The Backchannelmedia system is designed to enable advertisers to tie web site activity to the TV ad that prompted the consumer to click on her remote, says Daniel Hassan, co-CEO of Backchannelmedia. “The critical thing for advertisers is that when a TV viewer clicks ‘OK’ on her remote while watching a piece of advertised content, we save that click information so that if she goes online and buys something, we can tie it back to that 30-second commercial,” Hassan says. Advertisers participating in the trial include footwear retailer The Timberland Co. and the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he says.

The system gives the TV viewer the option of clicking a TV remote to receive an e-mail embedded with a link to a web page featuring the advertised product or service, or clicking the remote to send the same page link to a Backchannelmedia web portal, where registered consumers save TV commercial links for later use.

One of Backchannelmedia’s goals is to greatly increase what Hassan says is a 0.2% conversion rate among TV viewers who visit a TV advertiser’s web site after viewing the web address during a televised commercial. “Even a 1% conversion rate would add $40-$50 billion in ad revenue,” he says.

Backchannelmedia’s Internet-enabled TV ads are being tested this fall in several hundred homes in Boston served by Hearst-Argyle TV Inc. and in Hartford and New Haven, CT, homes served by LIN TV Corp., Hassan says.

Within a year, Backchannelmedia expects to have as many as 3 million homes participating in its TV-Internet advertising, Hassan says.

The current tests require participants to use set-top boxes provided free by Backchannelmedia on TV sets tied to broadcast TV networks. The next stage will allow cable and satellite TV subscribers to participate by downloading Backchannelmedia’s software to run with their existing set-top boxes, Hassan says. In the U.S. there are currently about 65 million TV set-top boxes that could eventually use the software, he adds.

Timberland is No. 408 in the .

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