When Vizio let loose a stable of new HDTVs at CES this year, it was apparent the outfit was beginning to head in another direction. For years it had pushed itself as a discount brand, grabbing market share the only way it knew how: by selling cheap. With a decent foothold in the US, Vizio has finally decided to switch gears and begin to market the more sophisticated aspects of its HDTVs. It won't stop throwing the word "value" around, but rather than honing in on how much cheaper its wares are compared to top-label competitors, it has now hired an ad agency to showcase the high-quality aspects. According to said agency, it wants "consumers to associate premiere audio quality, along with images, when they think about Vizio," and beyond all that, we're also hearing confirmation that the outfit will indeed be pushing out a low-cost soundbar in the near future. Go get 'em, Vizio.

Here at Engadget HD, we've been watching TV for a long, long time, and we can't honestly say that we've ever viewed commercial time as content time. Nevertheless, MTV Networks is teaming up with Cadbury and DISH Network in order to launch its "first-ever advertiser-supported interactive television campaign." Available "exclusively" to DISH Network customers (a curse disguised as a blessing?), the campaign will debut during The N's reality series Queen Bees on July 11th at 9:00PM ET / PT. Put simply, it will present viewers with sets of questions to answer during the show (no, that's not distracting at all), and in the next commercial break, the poll results will be shown. According to the outfits involved, this is their attempt to "reinvent commercial time as content time" and "encourage viewer retention throughout the pod." We're curious -- does anyone at MTV / Cadbury / DISH actually believe this stuff, or does it just sound great on a conference call?

Traditional and web-centric media houses are colliding, and you can bet there's some serious moolah to be made at the intersection. Right in line with that is Microsoft's purchase of Navic Networks, which brings interactive and addressable TV ads to Microsoft's portfolio. With Navic's customer roster, which includes Comcast, Cox, Time Warner and Charter, the acquisition (for an undisclosed price) makes Microsoft an overnight player in the cable ad space. It's not just about Microsoft buying up access to 35 million set-top boxes, either. Just as cable MSOs love to sell consumers on converged services, Microsoft is hoping to sell MSOs a unified platform for TV and online ads. Can targeted popups over the top of our favorite shows, or some other soul-crushing marketing brilliance, be far behind?

Not like you couldn't piece this one together yourself, but NBC Universal isn't going to let this opportunity pass it by. Just like the run-up to the SuperBowl, it's planning on using the Olympics as a campaign platform for HD. Reportedly, affiliates will be "provided with on-air, direct mail and bill stuffers to promote HDTV content sales, as well as material designed to retain current HDTV subscribers." In other words, expect to see an onslaught of ads coaxing folks into making the jump to high-def if they haven't already. Gotta love those marketing gurus, eh?

We spotted something this week that really got our heads spinning: a fairly fail proof method to keep ad skipping (at least partially) at bay. During a re-run of Family Guy on TBS, Bill Engvall casually walked onto the bottom of the screen, paused Family Guy and proceeded to pimp his own show for a solid 15 seconds. Yeah, TBS is known for self-promotion, but this just feels downright slimy. It prompted us to fire up this poll, however, which beckons you readers to cast your vote for the most annoying form of advertisement. Feel free to chime in below with specific experiences if you feel led, and make sure to use the heck out of that DVR while you still can -- clearly, these guys are all too ready to institute workarounds to hinder ad skipping. The Bill Engvall violation video is waiting after the break.

Merely months after Verizon managed to secure Michael Bay's talents to campaign for FiOS, the carrier has now snagged Celtics superstar Kevin Garnett to push its fiber-based services. The NBA big man is now starring in a 30-second spot for Verizon's FiOS, showing off just how much he adores the innovative Home Media DVR with multi-room recording playback capabilities (its words, not ours). First Frank Caliendo, then Mr. Bay, now KG -- who's next, Don King?

With Disney creating a dedicated lair for biometric testing of advertisements and Backchannelmedia pushing its own TV-to-internet ad platform, we aren't too surprised to see Macrovision teaming up with Sunflower Broadband to gauge the effectiveness of yet another advertising alternative. As part of the collaborative effort, EPG usage patterns of an "anonymous sample of Sunflower customers" will be collected and scrutinized in order to "gain insight into how consumers use i-Guide and interact with their DVR, on-demand services and in-guide advertising." In essence, the data will be used to "develop more effective consumer marketing tactics" and understand how subscribers "engage with interactive guide advertising." In-guide advertising? We hate to even think it, but really, what's next?

Life's good in Bristol -- at least it sure looks that way based on reports stemming from The Cable Show in New Orleans and the latest Nielsen data. For starters, primetime viewership on ESPN grew 15%, while total day ratings ratcheted up 13%. According to Sean Bratches, executive vice president of sales and marketing for the outfit, ESPN's ratings were 43% higher in high-definition homes versus standard-definition homes, reiterating that sports and movies are the two biggest draws of owning an HDTV. Needless to say, the news simply means that the network can demand even more for precious ad time, but we won't even pretend you didn't see that coming.

We've seen outfits and networks dig deep to figure out how to make ads more attractive (or just watchable, really), but Disney's taking things to an entirely new plateau. The mega-corp is establishing a laboratory in Austin, Texas which will actually test the biometric reactions of up to 4,000 people in order to better understand what types of commercials are most effective. In the controlled setting, gurus will be tasked with measuring "heart rate and skin conductivity while tracking the gaze of participants who are exposed to new ad models over the internet, mobile devices and TV screens." As expected, the entire project is being undertaken in order to discover whether it can charge more for certain spots, but we're told not to expect the findings until early next year.

[Image courtesy of MSNBC]

Some of you keen readers pieced all this together already, but that commercial you've been seeing about an "all new television series" dubbed Scarlet isn't a new show at all; rather, it's a risky move by LG to push its Scarlet LCD HDTVs. The sets themselves have been out and about already, and while the specifications aren't anything to sneeze at, the displays aren't nearly as seductive as the 30 second spot. The idea was crafted and put into motion by LG global brand marketing VP Kwan-Sup Lee and a team of advertising / marketing agencies, and while it refused to disclose exactly how much it has spent on the endeavor, it did affirm that it was "millions more than a typical product launch in the US." Sure, we can appreciate the envelope pushing, but now that we're all psyched about the show, it's a bit of a letdown to know we'll never actually be able to tune in. Check out the ad in its entirety after the jump.

Just an update on the Time Warner Cable/Verizon FiOS legal spat, Multichannel News is reporting a federal judge denied Verizon's request for a temporary restraining order to get the ads its deemed misleading off the air immediately. We can see why they'd think that, with the ads seeming to imply FiOS requires a dish (it doesn't) and that Time Warner uses fiber too (not really the same), but Judge Lewis Kaplan didn't feel it necessary to block them before a hearing on Verizon's preliminary injunction motion April 21. Check out the ads on our previous post and see how accurate they appear to you. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]

Comcast is rolling out its Spotlight program in Baltimore in Q3 of this year. There's a scary threesome involved in the effort: Comcast, media agency Starcom MediaVest Group and technology partner Invidi. Central to the program is Invidi's Advatar technology (no, not that Advatar) to deliver ads targeted to individual users. Before you get too scared by the "Big Brother" sound of all this, consider that Comcast's initial trial of addressable placements showed 38% less ad-skipping; that's a pretty good indication that people preferred the ad flavor cooked up by Comcast. Let's face it -- in conventional broadcasting (and increasingly online as well), advertising is a proven model. So programming is going to be sprinkled with ads; wouldn't you rather have them be personally interesting? We certainly prefer this to the "run the ads louder" approach. The real tricky issue will be maintenance of anonymity; we'll see how consumers respond as TV increasingly watches them. All companies involved would be wise to keep in mind the cost of winning back violated customer trust.

While we can't argue that HD spots are entirely more enjoyable to view than their SD counterparts, a new survey commissioned by Google takes a look at the viability of advertising in online programming. Given that content on the 'net is growing substantially and more and more users are turning to the web browser to get their TV fix, Google found that online video advertisements compared "very favorably with traditional TV commercials." The research honed in on 30-second spots shown on traditional TV, YouTube and embedded within an online viewer, and according to Marianne Foley, senior vice president of strategic initiatives at Harris Interactive (who collected the data), the end result is that "nothing is lost and much can be gained" by running commercials online. Of course, online ads have the advantage of being forced upon viewers, whereas DVR owners can skip around if they're okay with viewing timeshifted material. Peep the results in full in the read link below.

[Via NewTeeVee]

It was inevitable, really. No sooner does Comcast and Rogers Cable begin taking heat for over compressing their HD feeds than Verizon pumps out a TV spot trumpeting its ability to deliver "pure, uncompressed high-definition." The ad campaign asserts that its delivery of material is superior to that offered up by traditional cable providers, but the company's media relations director Bobbi Henson did note that the real purpose was to show that "FiOS TV customers are receiving HD that's not compressed by Verizon." She noted in an e-mail statement that "content owners compress their video before sending it to video service providers, but [Verizon] forwards the signal to its customers the way that [they arrive]." You know what they say about bandwidth: if you've got it, flaunt it.

Ha, get it? Brightroll? Yeah, we didn't try very hard for that one. Anyway, with HD streaming video over the internet becoming even more ubiquitous, advertising remains only a small step behind, as BrightRoll is debuting its proprietary technology to deliver HD video through rollover ads on partner websites like CNN, MTV and CBS News. The company CEO claims it can better last year's estimated 33% penetration of HDTVs, by delivering HD video to over 65% of internet users, the only question remaining is whether or not anyone is really asking for it.