AV Everywhere

I smiled to myself last Sunday. I was reading a horror book by Dean Koontz and the villain turned on the lights of his home with a Crestron touchpanel (page 638 in the paperback, False Memory). AV doesn't get much more mainstream than a mention in popular fiction.

Or does it?

On Monday, while watching MSNBC, I was astonished to see a commercial for an AV dealer in the area. A television commercial for a company that does projection for conference and boardrooms, no less.

I was very curious how cable advertising was working out for the company so I picked up the phone and ended up talking to the president of GlobalPresenter.com, Mike Oliver.

It turns out the 30-second commercial is running in Time-Warner cable areas, which includes five cities in the Orange County, California area.

KNews: What made you try cable advertising?

MO: We try different forms of advertising and thought this might be good. The other advertising we do is in the business journals. It's unsual for the market we work in. I haven't seen too many people do it in the projection business.

KNews: What channels are you on?

MO: Discovery, MSNBC, CNBC and CNN. We're catching the target market while they're at home watching TV.

KNews: How is it working out for you?

MO: It's working out ok. We don't have the return on investment, not quite yet, but I think with this type of advertising, it takes a little longer. We've have a few call ins when people see us, but with the exposure and frequency, we expect to see a real return in the next few months. At that time we'll expand the advertising and run the commercial in more markets.

KNews: How much did you pay to get the commercial done.

MO: The commercial was $2,000 and Time-Warner did it for us at their facilities.

KNews: Would you recommend this to other dealers?

MO: Definitely. The exposure is great!