Personal TV kingpin TiVo has announced a swath of new partnerships with ad agencies, ad clients and content-driven Web sites.

The strategic advertising agency partnership program announced by TiVo includes relationships with Starcom MediaVest Group (the media services arm of B|com3 Group, Inc.) and Digital@JWT, as well as an "initial" partnership with Omnicom Media Group. These strategic alliances are intended to increase the levels of collaboration between the ad industry with regards to including advertising on the TiVo platform.

On the client side, Miller Brewing Company (owned by Philip Morris) has been signed to TiVo's charter advertising program as part of a one-year agreement. Miller will have access to TiVo Direct, a service providing the brand with 30 minutes of pre-loaded ad content burned directly to the hard disc in each set top box. Similarly, the brewer will gain access to sponsorship opportunities, a seat on TiVo's advertising advisory board and priority access to ad concepts and data flowing from TiVo products.

Finally, AtomFilms has joined IFILM as a content provider for the service's weekly TiVo Takes program. More than 400 short films from the AtomFilms archives will be distributed via TiVo (and on iN Demand) and pre-loaded content from the short film site will also be pre-loaded onto the TiVo platform. Producing original content is also part of the arrangement.

TiVo's chief programming officer/VP of TiVo Entertainment Stacy Jolna breaks down the nuts and bolts of the various arrangements.

"TiVo is working inclusively with the advertising community to develop innovative and more compelling promotional, advertising and merchandising techniques. As such, consumers and marketers need to be addressed with equal weight and ultimately, if you create capabilities that are not working powerfully for consumers, then they are going to fail," says Jolna, mentioning that TiVo is compelled to work with all constituents in order to further the vision of advanced TV.

He breaks down the relevance of the strategic agency partnership program.

"We're interested in working with every aspect of our agency partners' staff as well as their clients. We've already begun putting advertising on TiVo Takes and we are developing sponsorship opportunities in TiVolution magazine, our interactive onscreen editorial guide to the best of television," explains Jolna. "The next step is for us to engage in creative conversations with advertising agencies and clients about new techniques we might create together to benefit our mutual constituencies. Agencies will be offering entry to the more innovative clients on their rich rosters to work with TiVo to develop the future of marketing and advertising."

Kevin Wassong, senior partner/director of digital@JWT says his agency's decision to partner with TiVo stems not from a fear of the new technology, but the reality that many people do not pay attention to TV ads.