J.C. Penny Co. recently produced a four and a half minute video to sell jewelry over the holidays. It’s a great piece of advertising – funny, strategically-focused – quite a step out of the box for J.C Penny. If you haven’t already, take a look at it here.
I say if you haven’t already, because apparently it has been viewed over 1.4 million times on YouTube in the past four weeks. Now this piece of advertising was directed by an Emmy-winner director. Whether an Emmy means the director is talented or not is debatable. Whether it means that the director is expensive, is not.
In other words, a four and a half minute commercial, directed by an Emmy-winning director is not done for chump change. After all, the average :30 national TV spot costs in the neighborhood of $366,000 to produce (without an Emmy-winning director). Four and a half minutes will cost considerably more.
Due to its length alone, this piece of advertising was never designed to appear on broadcast or cable. So, the question becomes, what numbers did the agency use to sell this idea to J.C. Penny?
And, does J.C. Penny feel that 1.4 million views justifies the cost of production for four and half minutes? Did the agency say something along the lines of, “Listen, J.C. Penny, what you’ll save by not having to buy media will be put into production. That way we’ll be able to make the spot so entertaining that viewers will syndicate the commercial for us virally?
Perhaps so.
And, it seems that in this case, it worked. But how about next time? The current industry mindset is that the only way that we can justify the enormous cost of production is through the enormous number of people who will have the opportunity to see a commercial. We used to be able to semi-guarantee these viewership numbers through ratings. I know, not everybody watched the commercial, but high ratings certainly made clients feel better when it came time to sign those production dollar checks.
The ends justified the means.
But ratings are going south in a hurry, and so in this case, I'm guessing that J.C. Penny and their agency, Saatchi and Saatchi, worked out a different bargain. Transfer media dollars to pay for production. And then make the commercial so compelling that viewers will want to share it with others.
There have been a few other examples where this has worked well. BMW Films, a few years ago, was the first. Nike’s 2005 viral video of Ronaldinho, a Brazilian soccer star, has had more than 26 million views on YouTube. Unilever’s 2006 Dove “Evolution” video has received more than 10 million hits. And now, J.C. Penny’s piece of advertising called “Doghouse.”
Four examples in the last 6 years of creating viewership through great creativity. I know, numbers like this don't inspire much confidence that this may work on a more consistent basis. But my belief is that this is exactly what we need. The fact is, I would take it even one step further. Rather than basing the success of the commercial on the number of views, base success on the time spent with the piece of advertising.
The numbers weren’t not released in regards to how long those that started to watch the four and half minute J.C. Penny piece continued to watch the spot all the way through.
But my guess is that J.C. Penny has those numbers. Or, at least, their agency does. A view counts as a view whether 10 seconds were watched or, all four and a half minutes. Which makes “a view” a rather a relatively unimportant number.
After all, I would argue that a four and a half minute view is more valuable than a ten-second view.
J.C. Penny paid for four and a half minutes to be produced. No doubt, Saatchi and Saatchi thought four and a half minutes were necessary to tell the story properly. Otherwise, they would have made the story shorter. Perhaps Saatchi told J. C. Penny that, “Heck, since we’re not going to run in broadcast or cable, we’re not restricted to :30 or :60. We can make it as long as we want.”
And, that’s true. But there has to be some accountability somewhere.
After all, there is this element of production dollars. Four and a half minutes does cost more to create than thirty seconds. Viewer involvement and attention through those four and a half minutes is the responsibility of someone.
I would argue that that someone is Saatchi.
So, J.C. Penny, how did Saatchi do?
Did you get your money’s worth? Having seen the commercial, I’m going to bet that in this case, you did. You paid for four and a half minutes of viewer involvement and I’m guessing that you got most of that.
Whether it led to sales of jewelry or not, I don’t really know.
But what I do know is that J.C. Penny’s is four and a half minutes closer to people thinking better about their brand. And that four a half minutes of branding is better than thirty seconds of branding.
If you go to the extreme and say that all 1.4 million viewers watched all four and a half minutes, then what Saatchi delivered to J.C. Penny’s was 4,375 days of involvement with their brand. (270 seconds x 1.4 million viewers.)
And for that, J.C. Penny should pay Saatchi very well.
Yes, very well indeed.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
What the IAB Forgot
On December 8th of this year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau released a report called the Audience Reach Measurement Guidelines, Version 1.0. It was 18 months in the making.
You can download it here.
The report starts out promising enough. After all, the participants in this project, designed to determine how best to measure audience reach related to Internet-based content or advertising, were impressive.
Of course, what I was most intrigued with from the report was that the IAB was going to finally define what time-spent meant in regards to online advertising.
I went through all 35 pages with a fine-tooth comb. The IAB did define time-spent. Here is their definition. “Time Spent – The amount of elapsed time from the initiation of a visit to the last audience activity associated with that visit. Time spent can be reported on the basis of cookied browsers, registration or panel participation, but in concept should represent the activity of a single cookied browser or user for a single access session to the web-site or property.”
So far, so good. But for the rest of the report, the IAB focused on page views. Not one mention of advertising. Much less video advertising. The IAB’s definition of time-spent, is fine. Superb, in fact. But their definition would work equally well for a viewer-initiated commercial as it would for a website. In a viewer-initiated commercial, the viewer opts-in to watch the commercial and then opts-out when the commercial looses relevance and/or interest.
All of this is measurable. In other words, an advertiser will know “the amount of elapsed time from the initiation of a visit to their commercial to the last audience activity associated with that visit to the commercial.”
Valuable information?
I’d argue yes.
After all, once advertisers know this, will they not want to pay accordingly? If an advertiser knows that the average, elapsed viewing time for their :60 spot was five seconds from initiation of a visit to the last audience activity associated with that visit, do you think they’re going to want to pay full-fare for the :55 that were not watched?
Forget that question. The more important question is, should they?
After all, fifty-five seconds that the advertiser paid good money to have produced were determined to be not relevant to an interested viewer that opted-in to watch. An interested viewer, mind you. Someone who took time out of his or her busy day to opt-in in the first place.
In other words, a potential sale.
Who’s to blame? Media? No. Once viewers opt-in to watch a commercial, accountability transfers from those that delivered the message to those that created the message, i.e. the creative agency.
So, why doesn’t the IAB factor video view time of commercials into their Audience Reach Measurement Guidelines? Beats the hell out of me.
Perhaps because the IAB, like most authoritative sources on the subject, incorrectly perceive this to be a media issue only, not a creative issue. It’s media data, after all. What does that have to do with creative?
Well, everything.
The beauty of the digital platform is that as advertisers lose control to viewers, losing the ability to “force” viewers to watch a commercial, they gain control over their agencies – both media and creative.
Because by giving viewers the freedom to do as they please, advertisers gain exact knowledge as to what viewers are doing.
And, if advertisers don’t start holding the appropriate parties accountable, creative agencies for involvement in the message and media agencies for exposure to the message, then these same advertisers are missing the big opportunity that digital present.
We have said in the past that the only way for advertisers to regain control is to give the viewer complete control. Because only by giving the viewer control do advertisers gain the knowledge they need to be able to hold their agencies accountable.
Advertisers have always said that accountability is on the very top of their wish list.
Unfortunately, the way it looks, if they wait for the IAB to give it to them, they might never get it.
Pity.
You can download it here.
The report starts out promising enough. After all, the participants in this project, designed to determine how best to measure audience reach related to Internet-based content or advertising, were impressive.
Of course, what I was most intrigued with from the report was that the IAB was going to finally define what time-spent meant in regards to online advertising.
I went through all 35 pages with a fine-tooth comb. The IAB did define time-spent. Here is their definition. “Time Spent – The amount of elapsed time from the initiation of a visit to the last audience activity associated with that visit. Time spent can be reported on the basis of cookied browsers, registration or panel participation, but in concept should represent the activity of a single cookied browser or user for a single access session to the web-site or property.”
So far, so good. But for the rest of the report, the IAB focused on page views. Not one mention of advertising. Much less video advertising. The IAB’s definition of time-spent, is fine. Superb, in fact. But their definition would work equally well for a viewer-initiated commercial as it would for a website. In a viewer-initiated commercial, the viewer opts-in to watch the commercial and then opts-out when the commercial looses relevance and/or interest.
All of this is measurable. In other words, an advertiser will know “the amount of elapsed time from the initiation of a visit to their commercial to the last audience activity associated with that visit to the commercial.”
Valuable information?
I’d argue yes.
After all, once advertisers know this, will they not want to pay accordingly? If an advertiser knows that the average, elapsed viewing time for their :60 spot was five seconds from initiation of a visit to the last audience activity associated with that visit, do you think they’re going to want to pay full-fare for the :55 that were not watched?
Forget that question. The more important question is, should they?
After all, fifty-five seconds that the advertiser paid good money to have produced were determined to be not relevant to an interested viewer that opted-in to watch. An interested viewer, mind you. Someone who took time out of his or her busy day to opt-in in the first place.
In other words, a potential sale.
Who’s to blame? Media? No. Once viewers opt-in to watch a commercial, accountability transfers from those that delivered the message to those that created the message, i.e. the creative agency.
So, why doesn’t the IAB factor video view time of commercials into their Audience Reach Measurement Guidelines? Beats the hell out of me.
Perhaps because the IAB, like most authoritative sources on the subject, incorrectly perceive this to be a media issue only, not a creative issue. It’s media data, after all. What does that have to do with creative?
Well, everything.
The beauty of the digital platform is that as advertisers lose control to viewers, losing the ability to “force” viewers to watch a commercial, they gain control over their agencies – both media and creative.
Because by giving viewers the freedom to do as they please, advertisers gain exact knowledge as to what viewers are doing.
And, if advertisers don’t start holding the appropriate parties accountable, creative agencies for involvement in the message and media agencies for exposure to the message, then these same advertisers are missing the big opportunity that digital present.
We have said in the past that the only way for advertisers to regain control is to give the viewer complete control. Because only by giving the viewer control do advertisers gain the knowledge they need to be able to hold their agencies accountable.
Advertisers have always said that accountability is on the very top of their wish list.
Unfortunately, the way it looks, if they wait for the IAB to give it to them, they might never get it.
Pity.
Friday, December 12, 2008
According To Les Moonves, We Can Stop Worrying Now
Whew.
And here I thought we were in trouble. But, according to Leslie Moonves, Chief Executive of CBS, that’s not the case at all.
Speaking to a room full of investors at the UBS’ Annual Global Media & Communications Conference in New York this week, Mr. Moonves said, “I’m here to tell you the model ain’t broken. You can still make a lot of money in network television.”
It’s nice to hear someone being positive about television, whether that confidence has any hope of being sustained or not.
Mr. Moonves' upbeat mood seemed to stem from the fact that CBS’s ratings, including DVR, have basically been flat from a year ago. Flat, these days, is apparently good.
It seems that, at least according to CBS, flat is the new up.
The problem with DVR ratings is that the majority of people who watch in a time-shifted mode, skip through the advertising.
So while CBS’s program ratings may remain high, the same can’t be said for the commercial ratings that actually pay for the programming. And, as Jeff Zucker, head of NBC Universal, made blatantly clear earlier in the week, without advertising dollars, new programming can’t and won’t be created.
It’s this transparency of digital data that Mr. Moonves should be most concerned about, not ratings. Especially as all TV becomes digital in February of next year.
TV ratings and commercial viewership will soon have very little to do with one another. Both will be able to be measured independently.
I do agree with one thing Mr. Moonves said. “Television is still the best place to go for big tent advertising.”
No question.
But big tents don’t do well in a big wind.
And the tsunami of digital data that will soon be blowing through is the strongest gale the networks have had to face to date.
Anchor down, Mr. Moonves. Anchor down.
And here I thought we were in trouble. But, according to Leslie Moonves, Chief Executive of CBS, that’s not the case at all.
Speaking to a room full of investors at the UBS’ Annual Global Media & Communications Conference in New York this week, Mr. Moonves said, “I’m here to tell you the model ain’t broken. You can still make a lot of money in network television.”
It’s nice to hear someone being positive about television, whether that confidence has any hope of being sustained or not.
Mr. Moonves' upbeat mood seemed to stem from the fact that CBS’s ratings, including DVR, have basically been flat from a year ago. Flat, these days, is apparently good.
It seems that, at least according to CBS, flat is the new up.
The problem with DVR ratings is that the majority of people who watch in a time-shifted mode, skip through the advertising.
So while CBS’s program ratings may remain high, the same can’t be said for the commercial ratings that actually pay for the programming. And, as Jeff Zucker, head of NBC Universal, made blatantly clear earlier in the week, without advertising dollars, new programming can’t and won’t be created.
It’s this transparency of digital data that Mr. Moonves should be most concerned about, not ratings. Especially as all TV becomes digital in February of next year.
TV ratings and commercial viewership will soon have very little to do with one another. Both will be able to be measured independently.
I do agree with one thing Mr. Moonves said. “Television is still the best place to go for big tent advertising.”
No question.
But big tents don’t do well in a big wind.
And the tsunami of digital data that will soon be blowing through is the strongest gale the networks have had to face to date.
Anchor down, Mr. Moonves. Anchor down.
Monday, December 08, 2008
So, How Is Behavioral Targeting Working So Far?
According to the “behavioral targetists,” they have been targeting commercials to consumers like us, based on our online behavior, for over a year now.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t found myself clicking on a lot more ads over the last year.
Publishers and ad networks will be quick to point out that I’m not the norm. Yet, we haven’t seen the click-through rates on ads increase over the last year, have we? Last I saw, they are still lucky to be approaching one percent.
So maybe I’m more normal than average.
If you remember, behavioral targeting was going to make online advertising that much more efficient. People will be clicking like crazy, was the promise.
Ooops.
Perhaps the problem is that there just aren’t enough relevant ads to run against the many different behaviors of different individuals.
For example, how are advertisers going to be able to justify the cost of creating a commercial for a group of people that seem to enjoy say, archery, bike riding and Italian food?
Males, 18 – 24, now that’s a demo large enough to justify the cost of commercial creation. But as we hyper-target smaller and smaller, the ends no longer justify the means.
The good news is that the “behavioral targetists” promise us that advertisers will soon be able to communicate one-to-one online.
Fantastic.
Well, at least it would be, if advertisers could afford to create something to say.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t found myself clicking on a lot more ads over the last year.
Publishers and ad networks will be quick to point out that I’m not the norm. Yet, we haven’t seen the click-through rates on ads increase over the last year, have we? Last I saw, they are still lucky to be approaching one percent.
So maybe I’m more normal than average.
If you remember, behavioral targeting was going to make online advertising that much more efficient. People will be clicking like crazy, was the promise.
Ooops.
Perhaps the problem is that there just aren’t enough relevant ads to run against the many different behaviors of different individuals.
For example, how are advertisers going to be able to justify the cost of creating a commercial for a group of people that seem to enjoy say, archery, bike riding and Italian food?
Males, 18 – 24, now that’s a demo large enough to justify the cost of commercial creation. But as we hyper-target smaller and smaller, the ends no longer justify the means.
The good news is that the “behavioral targetists” promise us that advertisers will soon be able to communicate one-to-one online.
Fantastic.
Well, at least it would be, if advertisers could afford to create something to say.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Here’s To Fragmentation
Fragmentation is good. Fragmentation is great. Long live fragmentation.
As you probably have surmised, I’m a big fan of fragmentation. Why? Less waste. As the fragmentation of the viewing audience continues, advertisers will only have to spend money to reach those that are interested, versus those that aren't.
In a nutshell, fragmentation eliminates the waste of mass marketing.
Will an advertiser’s overall audience be smaller? Of course. But with mass marketing, we have always known that we needed to talk to 100 to find the 10 who might actually give a damn about what we're selling. Imagine not having to talk to those 90 and only to those 10?
Seems rather idyllic, doesn’t it. Almost “green” in a sense.
Mass media content companies, of course, are not big fans of fragmentation. They have built their empires based on waste. In some ways, they are analogous to the oil companies of today. They need to find ways to make more "viewer-efficient" vehicles. Which they're not finding to be easy.
Of course, all is not perfect with fragmentation. In fact, there is a very large problem that most seem to be avoiding. The more focused the target, the more focused the advertising must be if it is going to have any chance of being successful. Which means advertisers can’t be running the same stuff they run in the mass media to these more targeted audiences.
They will need to create new stuff. The problem is that production dollars have traditionally been based on the size of the media budget. Ten percent was the norm. Sometimes as high as 15%.
As the audience becomes more fragmented and targeted, less media dollars will need to be spent. Which means fewer dollars willl become available for production.
Oh, I know that there are those that argue that because the price of equipment has become more accessible, anyone can make a commercial.
No argument there. Just watch TV sometime. It seems like anyone that can, is making commercials. Perhaps that’s why there are so few good ones.
But good video advertising relies on emotion to help make the sale. And emotion most often lies in the elements of production – music, lighting, cinematography, direction, acting, writing – elements that if done well, are not cheap.
Which is why good video advertising will remain expensive to create. And yet, smaller viewing audiences will make it difficult to justify the production dollars needed to create the emotionally compelling stories required to build brands.
With our improved targeting, we’ll be talking only with those who should actually be interested in the product that we are talking about. To offer them an inferior commercial in terms of quality just because the audience is smaller, seems ludicrous at best.
So, while on the media level fragmentation means less waste, on the creative level it could easily lead to a wasted opportunity.
The good news is that as viewing audiences become more fragmented, they also become more transparent. Advertisers will not only know how many are watching the programming, but also, how many are watching their advertising.
Could they not use this data to devise a way to make the cost of creative development dependent on how well the commercials are consumed by viewers?
The more that watch the commercial and the longer they watch it for, the more that commercial justifies the cost of production. So, the more the advertiser should be willing to pay the agency that created it.
Working in this manner, advertisers can start turning data into dollars. And, action into accountability.
Because the fact is, in the digital marketplace, audiences will occasionally be large, but more often small, and, usually tiny.
If it’s no longer going to be about how many saw the commercial, perhaps it's time to start finding ways to pay based on how long they watch the commercial for.
As you probably have surmised, I’m a big fan of fragmentation. Why? Less waste. As the fragmentation of the viewing audience continues, advertisers will only have to spend money to reach those that are interested, versus those that aren't.
In a nutshell, fragmentation eliminates the waste of mass marketing.
Will an advertiser’s overall audience be smaller? Of course. But with mass marketing, we have always known that we needed to talk to 100 to find the 10 who might actually give a damn about what we're selling. Imagine not having to talk to those 90 and only to those 10?
Seems rather idyllic, doesn’t it. Almost “green” in a sense.
Mass media content companies, of course, are not big fans of fragmentation. They have built their empires based on waste. In some ways, they are analogous to the oil companies of today. They need to find ways to make more "viewer-efficient" vehicles. Which they're not finding to be easy.
Of course, all is not perfect with fragmentation. In fact, there is a very large problem that most seem to be avoiding. The more focused the target, the more focused the advertising must be if it is going to have any chance of being successful. Which means advertisers can’t be running the same stuff they run in the mass media to these more targeted audiences.
They will need to create new stuff. The problem is that production dollars have traditionally been based on the size of the media budget. Ten percent was the norm. Sometimes as high as 15%.
As the audience becomes more fragmented and targeted, less media dollars will need to be spent. Which means fewer dollars willl become available for production.
Oh, I know that there are those that argue that because the price of equipment has become more accessible, anyone can make a commercial.
No argument there. Just watch TV sometime. It seems like anyone that can, is making commercials. Perhaps that’s why there are so few good ones.
But good video advertising relies on emotion to help make the sale. And emotion most often lies in the elements of production – music, lighting, cinematography, direction, acting, writing – elements that if done well, are not cheap.
Which is why good video advertising will remain expensive to create. And yet, smaller viewing audiences will make it difficult to justify the production dollars needed to create the emotionally compelling stories required to build brands.
With our improved targeting, we’ll be talking only with those who should actually be interested in the product that we are talking about. To offer them an inferior commercial in terms of quality just because the audience is smaller, seems ludicrous at best.
So, while on the media level fragmentation means less waste, on the creative level it could easily lead to a wasted opportunity.
The good news is that as viewing audiences become more fragmented, they also become more transparent. Advertisers will not only know how many are watching the programming, but also, how many are watching their advertising.
Could they not use this data to devise a way to make the cost of creative development dependent on how well the commercials are consumed by viewers?
The more that watch the commercial and the longer they watch it for, the more that commercial justifies the cost of production. So, the more the advertiser should be willing to pay the agency that created it.
Working in this manner, advertisers can start turning data into dollars. And, action into accountability.
Because the fact is, in the digital marketplace, audiences will occasionally be large, but more often small, and, usually tiny.
If it’s no longer going to be about how many saw the commercial, perhaps it's time to start finding ways to pay based on how long they watch the commercial for.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Addressing What’s Important About Addressable Advertising
There is an emerging school of thought that posits that consumers won't want to fast-forward through ads for products and services they really need or in which they have a deep interest.
Hence the push for addressable advertising – the ability to send cat food commercials to cat food owners and not to dog food owners.
Some are saying that addressable advertising will lead to the renaissance of the TV business. Usually the ones saying that are those that will make a ton of money if addressable advertising proves to be successful.
Canoe Ventures is currently talking a lot about addressable advertising. And they have a hell of a good talker in David Verklin. Having seen David spin his magic web of words, I think he could sell shoes to a legless man.
We’ll soon find out, as it appears television is looking for some legs to stand on.
Those disagreeing with David’s way of thinking, of which I am one, will argue that tests have not proven that relevancy defeats the urge to channel surf or fast-forward through the commercials on DVRs. Tom Rogers, the head of TiVo, has stated that relevancy has little impact on fast-forwarding. He should know, as TiVo is the company that really introduced fast-forwarding.
Mr. Rogers sounded the death-knell for intrusive advertising at his talk at the ANA conference in October. Not surprisingly, TiVo offers a non-intrusive advertising alternative.
Fortunately, facts do exist and they look a little like this. In the next two to three years, 50 to 60 million homes will have DVRs. When folks watch programming on a DVR, they fast-forward through 60% of the commercials.
If you happen to have a DVR at home, examine your own behavior. Do you stop at each commercial in the five-spot block of commercials to see if it’s relevant to you? Or, do you zap through all five commercials to get back to your program in around eight seconds?
I know in my case, it's the latter.
Oh, I do watch commercials. But on my own terms – not when they interrupt my programs. TiVo will tell you that the opt-in rate on their Showcase (their non-intrusive advertising alternative) is around 5%. VideoEgg claims a 2 - 9% opt-in rate on their overlays ads. I think we can forgive both companies for exaggerating. After all, they do have to make a living.
But what is true is that people do opt-in to ads. And that is where the relevancy of addressable advertising will prove its worth. Sending dog food ads to dog owners and cat food ads to cat owners in a non-intrusive format, should increase the number of people opting in. What it won’t do is decrease the numbers that are opting-out if the ads continue to intrude.
What would make the number of those opting in even larger is if they knew that they could also leave a commercial when they want to. What we have found is that people don’t mind investing time when they – not the advertiser - control the time invested.
But that’s the difficult part for advertisers to accept. This whole idea of giving complete control to the viewer. Letting them leave when they want. Of course, advertisers don’t want viewers to leave, period. So they punish them by taking away control.
Whom the advertisers should be punishing are the creative agencies that could not maintain the interest of someone who opted-in in the first place. My God, if a viewer opts-in, they’ve initiated the interaction with the brand. They’re a viable lead. If they opt-out at say, five seconds, then I would argue that the agency did the advertiser a huge disservice.
When the agency does a poor job, it's they that should be punished, not the viewer.
On the other hand, if the agency engaged the viewers enough to stay for the whole spot, well, then they should be rewarded.
In my opinion, both punishment and reward should be financially based.
Giving the consumer complete control over how much of a commercial they watch and paying the creative agency on that basis, is what will lead to a creative renaissance.
All this talk about addressability is nice, but it misses what’s important. Yes, you can lead a consumer to a commercial, but involving them in the commercial is another story.
And, in my opinion, that’s what the industry needs to start addressing.
Hence the push for addressable advertising – the ability to send cat food commercials to cat food owners and not to dog food owners.
Some are saying that addressable advertising will lead to the renaissance of the TV business. Usually the ones saying that are those that will make a ton of money if addressable advertising proves to be successful.
Canoe Ventures is currently talking a lot about addressable advertising. And they have a hell of a good talker in David Verklin. Having seen David spin his magic web of words, I think he could sell shoes to a legless man.
We’ll soon find out, as it appears television is looking for some legs to stand on.
Those disagreeing with David’s way of thinking, of which I am one, will argue that tests have not proven that relevancy defeats the urge to channel surf or fast-forward through the commercials on DVRs. Tom Rogers, the head of TiVo, has stated that relevancy has little impact on fast-forwarding. He should know, as TiVo is the company that really introduced fast-forwarding.
Mr. Rogers sounded the death-knell for intrusive advertising at his talk at the ANA conference in October. Not surprisingly, TiVo offers a non-intrusive advertising alternative.
Fortunately, facts do exist and they look a little like this. In the next two to three years, 50 to 60 million homes will have DVRs. When folks watch programming on a DVR, they fast-forward through 60% of the commercials.
If you happen to have a DVR at home, examine your own behavior. Do you stop at each commercial in the five-spot block of commercials to see if it’s relevant to you? Or, do you zap through all five commercials to get back to your program in around eight seconds?
I know in my case, it's the latter.
Oh, I do watch commercials. But on my own terms – not when they interrupt my programs. TiVo will tell you that the opt-in rate on their Showcase (their non-intrusive advertising alternative) is around 5%. VideoEgg claims a 2 - 9% opt-in rate on their overlays ads. I think we can forgive both companies for exaggerating. After all, they do have to make a living.
But what is true is that people do opt-in to ads. And that is where the relevancy of addressable advertising will prove its worth. Sending dog food ads to dog owners and cat food ads to cat owners in a non-intrusive format, should increase the number of people opting in. What it won’t do is decrease the numbers that are opting-out if the ads continue to intrude.
What would make the number of those opting in even larger is if they knew that they could also leave a commercial when they want to. What we have found is that people don’t mind investing time when they – not the advertiser - control the time invested.
But that’s the difficult part for advertisers to accept. This whole idea of giving complete control to the viewer. Letting them leave when they want. Of course, advertisers don’t want viewers to leave, period. So they punish them by taking away control.
Whom the advertisers should be punishing are the creative agencies that could not maintain the interest of someone who opted-in in the first place. My God, if a viewer opts-in, they’ve initiated the interaction with the brand. They’re a viable lead. If they opt-out at say, five seconds, then I would argue that the agency did the advertiser a huge disservice.
When the agency does a poor job, it's they that should be punished, not the viewer.
On the other hand, if the agency engaged the viewers enough to stay for the whole spot, well, then they should be rewarded.
In my opinion, both punishment and reward should be financially based.
Giving the consumer complete control over how much of a commercial they watch and paying the creative agency on that basis, is what will lead to a creative renaissance.
All this talk about addressability is nice, but it misses what’s important. Yes, you can lead a consumer to a commercial, but involving them in the commercial is another story.
And, in my opinion, that’s what the industry needs to start addressing.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Hulu Users Prefer Longer Ads
Go figure.
And all this time the new media experts were telling us that we had to make commercials shorter. And now this. A new study from Hulu showing that 88% of viewers would actually prefer longer commercials. And, by longer, we mean two-minutes in length.
What’s the catch?
Well, like any piece of research, one has to examine what people were actually choosing between. The choice Hulu is now giving viewers is to choose between one two-minute commercial at the front of their program with no other interruptions. Or, four 30-second commercials interrupting their 22-minute program four times throughout the course of the program.
The winner, according to Hulu, is that longer is better. And that’s certainly one way to interpret the results. But there’s also another way to look at it. What viewers are really saying is that they would rather have no interruptions versus interruptions.
After all, both options require viewers to sit through two minutes of advertising. It’s just that the intrusive option seems so much more irritating that the other.
Obviously, Hulu doesn’t give viewers the option of one 30-second commercial versus one two-minute commercial at the beginning. That would be a more accurate test to see is longer was truly preferred.
The way I see it, what Hulu is really testing is how many interruptions are too many.
Our philosophy has always been that it’s not so much the advertising that viewers are trying to avoid, as it is the constant interruptions to the program that they’re watching. And, if in fact, we could find a way to distribute advertising that didn’t interrupt what people were watching, people might actually choose to watch the advertising. At least enough to support a viable business model.
Up to now, we didn’t have any research to back us up. And while the Hulu research isn’t the end all and be all, it is certainly directional in its findings.
Having tried Hulu myself, I too prefer the two-minute option at the front. Do I watch the commercial? Of course not. But I have found that two-minutes is just about the right amount of time to go and check my email before the program starts.
Thirty-seconds, in fact, would be way too short.
And all this time the new media experts were telling us that we had to make commercials shorter. And now this. A new study from Hulu showing that 88% of viewers would actually prefer longer commercials. And, by longer, we mean two-minutes in length.
What’s the catch?
Well, like any piece of research, one has to examine what people were actually choosing between. The choice Hulu is now giving viewers is to choose between one two-minute commercial at the front of their program with no other interruptions. Or, four 30-second commercials interrupting their 22-minute program four times throughout the course of the program.
The winner, according to Hulu, is that longer is better. And that’s certainly one way to interpret the results. But there’s also another way to look at it. What viewers are really saying is that they would rather have no interruptions versus interruptions.
After all, both options require viewers to sit through two minutes of advertising. It’s just that the intrusive option seems so much more irritating that the other.
Obviously, Hulu doesn’t give viewers the option of one 30-second commercial versus one two-minute commercial at the beginning. That would be a more accurate test to see is longer was truly preferred.
The way I see it, what Hulu is really testing is how many interruptions are too many.
Our philosophy has always been that it’s not so much the advertising that viewers are trying to avoid, as it is the constant interruptions to the program that they’re watching. And, if in fact, we could find a way to distribute advertising that didn’t interrupt what people were watching, people might actually choose to watch the advertising. At least enough to support a viable business model.
Up to now, we didn’t have any research to back us up. And while the Hulu research isn’t the end all and be all, it is certainly directional in its findings.
Having tried Hulu myself, I too prefer the two-minute option at the front. Do I watch the commercial? Of course not. But I have found that two-minutes is just about the right amount of time to go and check my email before the program starts.
Thirty-seconds, in fact, would be way too short.
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