Zip Television has published its rate card for interactive advertising, including bandwidth costs for hosting applications with extended audio and video.
Zip has access to 12Mb/s of satellite capacity leased from SES Astra, with the ability to gear up or down on a monthly basis according to advertiser demand.
For example, 4Mb/s of bandwidth, capable of providing one full screen video channel, an additional quarter screen video stream and three audio tracks, is available at £76,500 net for a 28 day period.
Then there is the cost of the creative execution. Example costs given are £35,000 for creative design and £12,000 for application build.
In addition there is the not inconsiderable cost of air time for conventional spots from which to launch the interactive application.
Zip will provide response data as entered by the user for a fee of 50 pence per transaction. Research will be available starting at £5,000 for a telephone survey of 100 of those that interact with the advertisement.
These figures provide a reasonable indication of the commercial costs of enhanced television services assuming a bookable bandwidth model.
The comparable cost of delivering a complex multistream service, such as Wimbledon interactive, which used up to seven video channels, is left as an exercise for the reader.
Meanwhile, in an apparent response to the first campaign to run on the Zip TV capacity, an advert for Honda cars, Sky has set up a virtual car showroom allowing direct access to interactive ads through the Sky Active.
Rather buried under a New Cars menu, viewers can access interactive ads from brands such as BMW, Mercedes, Ford, Land Rover, Chrysler and Mitsubishi at any time during an interactive campaign, rather than only when the spot commercial is shown.