The dreams go back a long way. In the 1990s, conceptual fantasies of shopping, browsing and navigating on-demand “interactive TV” were everywhere – and it seemed like the future was just around the corner.

Then… not much. The internet boomed and video eventually graced connected screens. But interactive TV was still largely an unrealized dream.

Until lately, that is. Because contemporary consumption of TV through connected devices isn’t just about on-demand selections, it is now becoming about realizing the earliest dreams of the format.

“The idea of interactive television has been around for a very long time,” says Tal Chalozin, Innovid CTO, in this video interview with Beet.TV. “But what’s happened in the last year or so is that people… they put their credit card in a Roku or an AppleTV or something else.

“They’re used to discovery with voice, like with Siri or Alexa or other stuff. The type of viewer for television is totally different viewer than what it used to be with an older Comcast or type of a box.”

Chalozin’s Innovid is one of the companies making it happen.

During this year’s Super Bowl, interactive ads for Kellogg’s Pringles, powered by Innovid’s  OTT Composer technology, enabled viewers of the CBS Sports app on Apple TV.

They let viewers skip to alternative versions of the ad and use a QR code through an iPhone to purchase the products.

“We created the first-ever large national scale interactive and shoppable television ad for the Super Bowl, the largest televised event.

“A lot of the idea that used to be under-categorized under innovation and the cool things are reaching maturity mostly because viewers expect and play along with them.”

This video is part of the Beet.TV preview series titled “The Road to Cannes.”  The series is sponsored by 4INFO. Please visit this page for additional segments. 

By Robert Andrews on    @robertandrews