We’ve talked a lot on Video AdVisory about the effect that the internet has had on distributing video.  But there are some things happening behind the scenes that will have an impact on the process of creating video advertising.  Thanks to a company called ImageSpan, we’re seeing efficient mass customization come to television advertising.  And it’s the perfect marriage among digital videography, internet-based computing, and cable television.

Imagine the ability to deliver a customized car ad to every local market in America — customized not only with the names of local dealers, but actually showing the advertised car roll into the local dealer’s showroom.  ImageSpan has assembled a network of 7,000 accredited local videography companies (DigiNovations is one of them) to shoot local scenes for national commercials.  And they’ve created an automated advertisement builder that will assemble these customized commercials and route them to the cable companies (and to websites) for very precise delivery by geographical locale.

Since ultimately major automobile advertising supports the mission of local dealers who sell the car, the ImageSpan ad localization system begins to approach the new paradigm that Joe Pine described as “mass customization” that is, “the use of flexible computer-aided manufacturing systems to provide custom output” (See the Wikipedia article on Mass Customization).

Still, though, something is missing.  And that’s where the next innovation in cable television can possibly come in.  In New York State later this year, Cablevision will be testing the ability to target advertising not by city or town, not by neighborhood, but rather to the individual settop box, according to individual household interests.  A recent article in TV Week suggests that “an automotive advertiser might target ads to customers whose leases are coming due soon.”

One can see where this is going: the ability to target advertising to individual set-top boxes (which suggests even discriminating among different rooms in the household!) combined with a manufacturing system to actually build tailored ads.  One can envision someday a system that configures a customized message with customized local content and delivering it to large numbers of very small audience segments.  THAT is closer to Pines’ ideal of mass customization.

We’ll watch this trend with great interest, doing our part by shooting local content for ImageSpan throughout Boston’s western suburbs.  Don’t be surprised, though, if you see an ad that seems specifically designed for you.

And as a marketer, you might start to think about how to use at least the local customization that’s available today.  By getting experience with this new tailoring technology, you’ll gain important insight into the future of a advertising medium once thought to be only for mass audiences.