Behind the Buzz - digital and interactive advertising and marketing

Upfront advertising

by Rachel on May 15th, 2007

It’s the upfront season, where the advertisers get together with the TV companies to see what they have coming up, what valuable properties they can be associated with. The world is changing faster than ever and TV no longer has a monopoly, competing for attention with the web, with mobile, with timeshifting and VOD. Although still the channel that has the most reach, it’s loosing its effectiveness. So this year, both parties continue to see if they can do things differently. I think most people are aware that the entertainment they watch is paid for by advertising, but get frustrated at the poor way it is presented and delivered, they avoid the bad stuff. To keep the same ‘quality’ (I say that advisedly, I only watch about 4-5 series) of programmes, then things needs to change. The New York Times examines some of the changes that are coming.

• providing content on multiple devices and placing ads on those. I watch a lot of my stuff online and the ad support is miserable in the main. There’s not enough content, the same ad gets played again and again, sometimes way past its sell-by date. Massive room for improvement here.
• Putting original content withint he breaks, to keep people watching. Fox have been experimenting with Oleg (it may be a short experiment, the official Fox link 404s), in 8 second shorts, to grab people’s attention and make them stop and think. Not everyone’s cup of tea, potentially a poor use of animation, but changing the thinking.
• CW have been presenting ‘content wraps‘ since last year - nightly six-minute mini-program with integrated product placement divided into three two-minute segments airing at 30-minute intervals within the primetime schedule.”. Put your product into the mix of new content and see if it sticks. Sounds suspiciously like infomercials, but I’ve never seen one so can’t comment.
• Endorsement from the actors appearing in the programme. Product endorsement appears to work, all these sportsmen and actors would not be making their millions unless there was some evidence to prove it and here you are just making a direct connection, on the assumption that if you are watching the show you like the actors.
• improving the ads. A challenge from the TV networks to make better ads that people want to watch. There’s a reason why there’s such commentary about the Superbowl ads - the companies normally make an effort over and above the norm. Doing this allt he time, making ads that are well worth watching and people will stop and watch. I still remember the storm surrounding the Gold Blend ads, with 30 million (that’s over half the population) watching the last spot to find out what happened to the characters.

One option that I don’t think is possible in the US for the networks is subscriptions; it works for cable or for the BBC where it is compulsory, but it would not fly here. When discussing the state of marketing and how advertising is dead, the symbiotic relationship between programme producers and advertisers is sometimes forgotten. I like my TV entertainment, I don’t like the ads, but having one without the other may not be possible.

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