Sky AdSmart targets TV adverts at you (yes, you!) reveals ad agency The DRTV Centre

The DRTV Centre, the UK's specialist direct response TV advertising agency, announces Sky AdSmart, Sky’s new advertising service which tailors what is shown in TV ad breaks according to a household’s profile and location.

Major household names using the service include Tesco, Royal Bank of Scotland, Littlewoods, American Airlines and Audi. Brands including Citroen and Dial-A-Flight have also confirmed that they will be rolling out campaigns using the Sky AdSmart service over the course of the year.

Available in more than a fifth of UK households, Sky AdSmart promises to increase the size of the TV advertising market by attracting new brands to advertising on TV. This includes local businesses who may have previously concluded advertising on TV wasn’t for them and brands that may have left TV advertising.

Local advertisers who have signed up to use Sky AdSmart include insurance group First Central and the Hampshire car dealership Hendy Group. In total, one quarter of the brands that have signed up for Sky AdSmart are either new to TV advertising or had previously left the market. Those returning to TV advertising include Nestle’s confectionery brand Polo.

Andrew Griffith, Sky’s Managing Director, Commercial Businesses and Chief Financial Officer, comments: “With Sky AdSmart, we want to make TV advertising work better for viewers and advertisers. By enabling advertisers to better segment the TV audience, Sky AdSmart has the potential to open up TV advertising to many more brands and businesses. This helps both the brands that previously thought TV too broad a medium, as well as local advertisers who felt that TV wasn’t previously accessible to them.”

David Pearson of The DRTV Centre adds: "This is Sky reacting to the challenges posed by online media. Any innovation that makes TV commercial targeting more specific and accurate is to be welcomed."

Sky AdSmart technology works by sending a library of adverts via satellite to the Sky+HD set-top box. It then selects the adverts which best match a household’s profile and inserts them into a live ad break. The line-up of adverts is based on a customer’s postcode alongside publically available demographic information from third-party providers including Experian.

About The DRTV Centre www.drtvcentre.com

Mission: “To create Instant New Customers for our clients.”

The agency was founded in London in 1997. It specialises in direct response television advertising.

The DRTV Centre’s service includes everything clients need to mount successful DRTV campaigns: strategies, idea creation, scriptwriting, storyboards, research, casting, location search, film/video production, music, voice-overs, Clearcast clearance, transmission copies, channel selection, TV airtime planning/booking and campaign response analysis.

For more information, call The DRTV Centre in the UK on 0800 635 9000.