Let’s Run Ads During The Ads

You could call it interrupting the interruption.

TiVo is now offering advertisers the option of running banner-type ads while people fast forward through the commercial that originally paid to run there.

I’m wondering if this means that TiVo is double-dipping - still charging for the commercial that people fast-forward through, while at the same time, charging for the banner ad that runs while people fast-forward through the first commercial?

Rhetorical question, I know.

The old axiom says that you can’t solve a problem until you figure out what the problem actually is.

The ad industry still believes that the problem is that viewers are skipping commercials. That’s why their answer is to disable the fast-forward button. Or, as TiVo is now doing, running ads over the fast-forwarding capability.

But what if the issue isn’t that viewers are trying to skip commercials, but rather that viewers are trying to skip interruptions to their program? If so, then the solution is to find a way to deliver commercials that don’t interrupt the viewing experience.

TiVo will probably claim that running banner ads while the viewer fast-forwards does just that. But to me it seems that TiVo’s solution just makes the problem worse.

Advertisers used to just interrupt the programming.

Now, they can also interrupt the interruptions.

Gotta love progress.

If Media Wants To Be Accountable For Engagement, Then Should Creative Be Accountable For Disengagement?

Everywhere you look it seems that media is trying its best to be held accountable for advertising’s new buzz word – engagement.

Even though everyone knows that engagement is truly a shared responsibility between media and creative.

So to make things easier, what if we said, "Okay, media, you’re accountable for engagement.  And then, creative, you’re accountable for disengagement." 

Of course, this won’t work for pre-roll spots, where the viewer has no control over the commercial.  With pre-roll, engagement is a forced view and disengagement is disallowed. 

But where it does work well is for the future of advertising, where the viewer is in control over the type of advertising they watch and for how long. 

As we have said in the past, control gives the viewer the freedom to opt-in simply because it also gives the viewer the freedom to opt-out.  And, what we have found is that viewers don’t mind investing time in commercials as long as they can control the time invested.

If a viewer is truly engaged in a commercial, chances are they’ll watch more of it rather than less.  When they decide to disengage, it means the commercial has lost interest.  

Creating interest is the responsibility of the creative agency.

The point of disengagement is revealing because it’s at this point that the creative is no longer doing its job.

Which is why it’s at the point of disengagement that the fee should change for the creative agency.   If the majority of viewers disengage from a 60-second spot ten seconds in, the agency should make less money for creating that commercial then if the majority of viewers disengage 55 seconds in.

Fifty-five seconds watched offers more value to the advertiser then ten seconds watched.  If the creative agency delivered more value, then the advertiser should be willing to pay the agency more money for delivering that value.

It’s a model called Viewer Time Spent Compensation.  Basically, it’s a performance-based model for commercial creation.

Since both engagement and disengagement are now measurable metrics on most digital platforms, advertisers can start holding media accountable for the former and their creative agency for the latter.

Can you say win/win?

Once Again, The Experts Are Wrong

It’s worth noting that you if check out the ten most popular viral videos this week, only three are thirty seconds in length. 

How long are the other seven?  Take a look.

1:45

2:00

1:00

7:30

3:45

1:20

2:41

The so-called experts have been telling us that commercials will have to be shorter to be effective online. Something about online viewers' attention spans.  And that because viewers are in control, they will opt out of long commericals.

Obviously, the experts have forgotten the power of a story well told.

The thing about control is this.  Viewers don't like pre-roll because it eliminates the control they have over the commercial.

What we're finding out is that viewers don't mind opting-in if they know they can opt-out when they want to.

In other words, they don't mind investing time in a commerical if they control the time invested.

What makes them stay longer?

Story.

Sorry, experts.

Time Spent Vs. Impressions

There are a lot of people attempting to figure out what’s going to replace the impression and CPM as the currency for new media. In the running are cost per click, cost per view, cost per install and cost per action. Not surprisingly, all of these are performance-based measures.

And, each have their own unique set of deficiencies.

There is now even a desire for an eGRP, or an Electronic Gross Rating Point system. According to the experts, this will need to be a “time-based” eGRP as opposed to a “reach-based” eGRP.

In other words, an eGRP will focus on consumer time spent at each touch point. The theory is that this will start to offer a scalable metric, now more important than ever due to the continuing fragmentation of the viewing audience.

After all, the objective for most media agencies is to deliver brand messages at scale. With fragmentation, scale is becoming more difficult to come by. Time spent offers an alternative metric that is actually scalable. The fact is, as fragmentation continues to decrease the size of the audience, time spent becomes more and more desirable to advertisers.

To most advertisers, more time spent with their brands is better than less time spent.

But the question remains, who’s accountable for delivering time-spent – the media agency or the creative agency?

What’s slowing down the adaption of time-spent as a metric is that media agencies are trying to figure out how they can buy and sell time-spent? It’s easy when it’s a forced view, i.e. pre-roll, where all control over the advertising is taken out of the hands of the viewer.

In that case, media agencies buy audience or content, just as they’re doing now.

Where the problem lies is with non-intrusive advertising, the type of advertising where the viewers decides whether they watch the commercial or not. And, for how long.

I would argue that in these instance, time-spent is the responsibility of the creative agency.

That they haven’t claimed this as their bailiwick yet is surprising to say the least. Viewer time spent is the one thing creative agencies have ultimate control over.

Much more so than sales.

If creative agencies are going to be held accountable in the digital marketplace, which they are, you would think they would want it to be for something they have control over.

Until media agencies and creative agencies come to the conclusion that time spent is a shared responsibility, we will continue to use the old measurement metrics for this new media.

Regardless how inefficient these metrics are proving to be.

Should Consumers Also Choose The CMO?

Now that PepsiCo is turning the selection of an agency for its new product launch over to consumers, the ultimate question has to be, why stop there?

Why not allow consumers to also choose the Chief Marketing Officer on the client side?

The current (but perhaps, not for long) director-marketing of Mtn Dew implied as much when he said, “If we’re going to have a dialogue with consumers and have consumers play a role in dictating the future of our brands, they’ve got to play a role in all aspects of it.”

Well, the selection of a CMO is currently an important aspect in dictating the future of any brand, isn’t it?

So, how about it? Put together a list of potential CMO’s, have each do a video interview explaining why they think they are right for the job, put the videos online, and then let the consumers decide.

It makes as much sense as having the consumer choose the agency.

The director-marketing of Mtn Dew explained the decision by saying, “It lets us get an interesting and unique perspective on the brand from people that aren’t living and breathing it every day.”

With logic like that, one has to consider that even allowing the consumer to choose the CMO isn’t going far enough.

Maybe the answer is to have the consumer actually be the CMO. In other words, put all marketing decisions up to a vote.

Now, that would truly be, as they so cutely put it at Mtn Dew, Dewmocracy.