Profile - ITV.com offers brands something new

supermodel's latest clobber.

"I scored four items from the Topshop site in three minutes. That's a
good customer experience. I want everyone to leave the ITV 'store' in
the same way - happy and inspired to come back," says the multi-tasking
mum.

ITV.com offers a live streaming simulcast; a 30-day "click and watch"
catch-up service; 20,000 hours of archive programming; a citizen
journalism network and Web Lives, a daily, interactive three-minute
soap.

While ITV hopes that putting versions of classic game shows online will
generate income, access to the majority of content on the site is free
and online advertising will be the site's main revenue spinner.

According to van den Belt, who joined ITV in January from Telegraph
Media Group, the broadcaster has been working hard with media agencies
to make sure it can offer brands something new.

While ads on the live stream are the same as the television offering,
for the catch-up and archive services brands will be able to take
advantage of in-video ads, which can take on a variety of lengths and
appear at any point in the programme.

Fast-forward

And advertisers, to be announced before the site goes live in the next
couple of weeks, can rest assured that while the user can fast-forward
the show, they can't fast-forward the ads.

At last Tuesday's unveiling, van den Belt demonstrated an Expedia
in-video ad that trailed before the catch-up of the new Stephen Fry show
Kingdom. She is confident that viewers will watch these as they do
normal TV spots, although the length and frequency of these ads is still
being tested.

"We still need to define what the optimum time is. We're working with
agencies to decide this. There's an art to planning an ad TV campaign.
Agencies know exactly which brands need 20, 30 or 40 seconds - online
we're not really sure yet."

At the heart of ITV's ad offerings is a server system developed in-house
by ITV's technology team, led by Steve White, which can split ads into
different lengths and formats.

As part of the broadcaster's Advertising Innovation Project, ITV has
also been working with Omnicom trading unit OPera on ways the agency can
use its brands on ITV.com's archive site - set to consist of microsite
sponsorship and in-content video ads.

"There are a whole range of opportunities within ITV's site where we can
fit brand microsites. Ford (an OPera client) wants to sponsor the
Inspector Morse series, so we're looking at ways of creating special
forwards before each episode."

ITV.com's mobile team is also looking at content distribution across
mobile networks, which is expected to include a mix of clips and live
streaming.

According to van den Belt, advertising on the site will be "an
evolutionary process". The longer it runs and the more users register
and sign up for things such as newsletters, the clearer the consumer
profiles will be that help advertisers target specific consumers.

Van den Belt cautions that this type of targeting will only work for
some campaigns: "We're also working with advertisers to create a
'surprise factor'. There is a bit of a Holy Grail about touting
advertising. You can't assume all female users want information on
beauty products."

Sponsorship opportunities

The more distribution platforms ITV can have, the greater the range of
sponsorship opportunities. Consequently, van den Belt believes the brand
that takes over Cadbury's sponsorship of Coronation Street will have to
think hard about extending into online and mobile in a relevant and
engaging way.

"You shouldn't extend into any of these platforms because you're
supposed to - we need to make sure that what's delivered to the sponsor
makes sense for them," she says.

ITV expects to break even with its broadband offerings by 2009 -
although rivals think van den Belt has her work cut out.

Director of digital publishing at Guardian Newspapers, Simon Waldman,
with whom van den Belt founded the Association of Online Publishers in
2002, warns: "With TV there are more rights issues involved, more
capital and, judging by the showy press launch, huge expectations from
the City."

However, Waldman does praise her entrepreneurial spirit and "ability to
rally people around".

Indeed, the Dutch executive, who speaks six languages and introduced
Playboy and Men's Health to a media-starved Russia, is certainly
enthusiastic about the challenges ahead.

As she says: "It's about injecting entrepreneurialism into traditional
media businesses to embrace new things, working with consumers and new
technology partners and defining the future."

CV

2007: Managing director, ITV Broadband

2006: Director of new media, Telegraph Media Group

2005: Deputy advertising sales director, The Times and The Sunday
Times

2001: Digital director, Times Newspaper Group

2000: Business development director, News International

1998: Publisher, The Moscow Times

1997: Publisher, Russian Playboy, Men's Health.