More Ads in Online-TV: New research could demonstrate no need to coddle with limited commercials

Posted by Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP in Writers on October 15, 2010  |  0 Comments More from this author  |    |  Follow Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP on: Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter |

That is the possible result of CW Network's new research reported by Advertising Age.  This result would be counter-intuitive with more conventional wisdom regarding online advertising.

Advertising Age reports:

We've all thought that online viewers -- so prone to click-click-click away to the next interesting thing -- would never sit through more than one or two ads when watching their favorite show online, and indeed, the initial set-up of ABC's much-touted online video player has been built so that viewers just see one or two ads before being returned to their program in progress.

Now CW will likely report the opposite is true: TV fans will sit through a longer period of commercials, even when watching their show via nontraditional means.
Such a finding would lend ballast to any number of efforts to jam more ads into the online-TV viewing experience.

Could this be simply a self serving study for their earlier released new system:

CW earlier this year unveiled a new system that combines sales of TV and online inventory, though this buying executive suggested the network might be using some of its online ad inventory for "make goods," or ad inventory given away to clients when a network's TV shows fail to meet agreed-upon ratings guarantees.

I'm not convinced of this result, being a too large discrepancy between researches that report the opposite.

There are reasons though that will favor the advertising experience if we take a qualitative, innovative and evolutionary approach:

Relevancy of ads

Very important to understand this difference: In essence it's not that people are against advertising, they are annoyed by the irrelevancy of it. With all the technological advancements such as addressability, TV advertising will be more relevant and less interrupting.  

Type of ads

Because media is converging, devices are converging and everything will be intermingled, the industry has to think about the content of advertising.  Why not starting to think about cross-media or even transmedia advertising, making use of all devices/entry points and creating new types of advertising.

The objectives of ads shall have to change as well to be contextually releva nt.What about ads that dynamically modifies the ad based upon the shown TV content. These type of ads already exist.

Changing behaviors and markets

The two abovementioned points are an effect of overall changing behaviors, emerging- and blurring markets. The conventional and typcical lineair conversion funnel has been discredited the last couple of years and the New Consumer is on the rise (taken from Agora Media blog):

The so-called New Consumer defined by Lewis and Bridger, seeks authenticity, is individualistic, independent and well-informed.
Besides the complex human nature, external factors like the Internet influence the decision making cycle, by enabling the consumers to morph along its online journey being constantly in touch with the available information and other people. Segmentation seen from the New Consumer point of view is becoming an obsolete term. They can’t be predicted or labeled.

Segmentation in this context is interesting, because -for instance- addressable TV advertising will create a one-on-one relationship, having less need to segment on that level of marketing.

A more adapted model that fits the influence of the Internet is the Consumer Decision Journey by McKinsey.

Future outlook

Marketers have to understand changing behaviors, technological innovations and changing values/needs. If content and advertising are that organic that advertising doesn't has an interruptive character, irrelevancy and annoyance decrease and have more added value.

Another future outlook due to technological advancements are branded content - entertainment, product placement and TV formats itself that are new revenue streams.