Hot shows and hot wings were passing ships that were fit to be featured this past week. Let's take a closer look.
Hey, look, it's the Surfing Channel!
When you hear TiVo (NASDAQ:TIVO) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) in the same sentence, it's easy to get wide-eyed over the possibilities. The companies, though, are hooking up for what seems to be a measly deal to allow TiVo owners the ability to use Yahoo!'s online TV listings to program the shows they would like to record and watch later. Simple stuff, right? But wait a minute ... your online connection is in your den. Your TiVo is in your living room.
Despite WebTV's college try, or the attempt by computer makers like Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) to promote media-center systems that would assist in computerizing your home theater, most folks don't surf the Web from the comfort of their own couch.
TiVo and Yahoo! aren't looking to change that -- not yet, anyway -- but let's follow the logic here. The new partnership will allow owners of the Tivo 2 series of digital video recorders to log on to Yahoo!'s television programming site from anywhere in the world and single out shows they would like to watch. Because Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation TiVo uses your phone line to update its schedule, you can now effectively communicate with your TiVo from wherever you have an online connection.
Cool? Well, no. And it gets even cooler. Remember when TiVo started experimenting with showing ads during replays back in March? Selling ads may seem like an annoyance to a user base smitten by TiVo, but what if it evolved to the point where there could be an ad-supported TiVo that would be free to couch potatoes everywhere?
Interested? Think about it. Advertisers realize that it's not as easy to get to you anymore through conventional means. Print circulation is down for many leading magazines and newspapers. Folks are zipping past televised ads. The one area that is growing quickly for marketers is contextual online advertising. Paid search is where it's: Companies like Yahoo! and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) are striking it rich by serving up cheap ads, perfectly targeted, in volume. So let's connect the dots. Yahoo! and TiVo have a partnership in which Yahoo! is now able to push information into your TiVo box. Yahoo! also happens to have a boatload of text ad inventory just begging to be distributed. Knowing what you're watching -- and knowing a little bit about you -- allows perfect ads to be served up on a split screen at the appropriate time. An ad of interest can be opened up to reveal a more extensive pitch or can be bookmarked so the advertiser's site will be waiting for you the next time you log on to Yahoo!.
If you're digging this kind of early-adopter convergence chatter, you may want to put down that remote and soak in the investing wavelengths provided around the clock at Rule Breakers Central, the hub of the Rule Breakers newsletter service.
If you're on the other side of the fence, shaking your head and saying that TiVo will never converge with Madison Avenue, think again. This isn't as far-fetched as you may think. Just connect the dots. They're right there, staring at you like some smiling, freckled kid.
Want a flu shot with that popcorn chicken?
When you think about the avian flu, the first three letters that come to mind aren't likely to be KFC. However, the Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) chain isn't taking any chances. Fearing that misconceptions of influenza strains being passed by chickens in Asia may hurt domestic sales by as much 20%, KFC executives are planning a pre-emptive strike by launching an advertising campaign to address related concerns if pandemic fears start eating into fried-chicken sales.
It's not just KFC that could be in for trouble with Yum! Brands. Chicken plays a prominent protein role at Taco Bell and, to a lesser extent, as a pizza topping at Pizza Hut. It may seem kind of absurd to go through with a full-blown marketing campaign over this, but the fast-food industry remembers how consumers backed out of the Wendy's (NYSE:WEN) drive-thru earlier this year with a notoriously errant chili finger.
Besides, with KFC willing to debase its own Colonel Sanders a few years ago in televised ads -- where he was doing the butter-churn end zone dance in animated form -- there's no way that avian flu edutainment ads can be any worse.
The headlines behind this week's stories:
Until next week, I remain,
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz thinks that boneless chicken wings are tasty, as long as you have plenty of napkins nearby. He does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this story. The Foo l has a disclosure policy. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early.
