Being at an awards dinner with cable giants like Showtime and Starz was a thrill for the self-professed TV junkies at Cherry Hill's t-commerce solution company
icueTV. But standing next to them on the podium as finalists for the same award took this gratification to a new level.
At the New Orleans, LA banquet this week, icueTV was announced as a finalist for
Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM)'s
"Get Interactive" Awards. icueTV creates a sales portal for advertisers to connect directly with TV viewers as they watch. Watching Shark Week on Discovery? You can buy the DVDs right from your remote. icueTV has been steadily expanding, now represented within the six largest cable providers in the nation. But even with great traction, this is still a new technology and icue hopes this award signals recognition from the cable television industry that it's time to make a move.
"For years, people have thought about using the TV remote to buy products," says icueTV VP of Business Development Ralph Nieves. "We feel that this award signals that t-commerce is an idea who's time has come."
Starting out in political polling and other on-screen data tracking applications, icueTV developed a platform that expedites the purchase process, integrating a PayPal account, e-mail connectivity and one-touch purchasing. And while this is still an emerging technology, no one told icueTV. They have already begun hiring engineers tasked with finding new applications and clients as if this platform was old news. The company hopes this award will cement them as an industry leader as its technology becomes standard in digital sales and marketing.
"Our customers know who we are but to become certified and vetted took us four years," says Nieves. "We are not arrogant enough to think competition doesn't exist already but we are confident that no cable labs are examining commerce applications in the way we are."
Source: Ralph Nieves, icueTV
Writer: John Steele