Television

If anyone ever doubts the power of advertising — of mass media — they only need to visit modern day Africa. Though still rooted in a subsistence farming-based economy, Africa has been "globalized." And it is advertising that powered this change. For good or bad, advertising changes minds, changes lives, even cultures and countries.

Reading the tea leaves of advertising’s future gets more difficult each day. As technological advances enable new options, we experiment enthusiastically. Yet in critical ways, our innovations look strangely familiar. Both the Internet and our portable media devices increasingly resemble interactive variations of television.

How will the transition from analog to digital affect production on DRTV campaigns? On February 17, 2009, federal law will end transmission of analog TV signals in favor of digital. We've heard this before, but the deadline was extended. For that reason, some agencies will take a wait-and-see approach before switching to high def production. But DRTV shops should act now.

Will people remember three-second video ads on their mobile phones? Do high-definition commercials on big screens get people's hearts racing more than other pitches? Is the sports ticker crawl distracting or does it add value to the 30-second TV spot? A laboratory in Austin, Texas, to be founded by The Walt Disney Co. by the end of the year aims to answer these questions and more by testing the biometric reactions of a pool of up to 4,000 people to advertising that takes advantage of the latest technology.

Writing for Adotas, Meir Zohar writes, "As we approach times of uncertainty in 2008, it's also important for us to evaluate our behavior. Are we committing budgets to campaigns without testing our efforts? Are we developing social networking campaigns which do not engage our prospects just to say that we're doing ‘something' social? Are we running elusive video-branding campaigns with repurposed TV commercials?" Behavioral targeting, he suggests, may be the cure.

In an addressable advertising trial in Huntsville, Alabama, Comcast Cable and Starcom have shown that relevant ads can keep viewers from fleeing commercials. Households that received specific ads based on demographic data changed channels 38 percent less often than the rest of the viewing audience. Viewers don't hate advertising ... they hate irrelevant advertising.

In a study of advertising's impact on consumer packaged goods sales, Google has found that online video works as well as TV. 30-second spots for drinks, snacks, and skin care were run on television, on YouTube, and embedded in other online content. All performed roughly the same, with an edge to embedded online video ads for influencing purchase intent. And that's just with repurposed content.

Erick Schonfeld of Tech Crunch has gotten thinking about what needs to be done to make TV advertising as relevant as video advertising. We have a long way to go, he says, but it boils down to two things: 1) replacing 30-second commercials on TV with relevant ad overlays that pop up at exactly the right moment during a show, and 2) automating the buying, creation and placement of TV ads to make it more like buying search ads.

Just because consumers are currently watching free, short-form video does not necessarily indicate there is a viable business model to support viewing of traditional TV content online. Most of the evidence available suggests that online video content is supplementing and complimenting traditional TV content and viewing habits rather than replacing or supplanting them.