The big challenge for brands over the next few years will be getting people to watch or listen to ads. So far, and despite predictions of its demise, the interruption model has held up pretty well; for instance, people with DVRs may skip through some of the breaks when they watch a recording but they also tend to watch more TV and so, in the aggregate, more ads. There's still plenty of interruption ads on the web.
But as the viewer-medium interface becomes more and more supple, and choice increases, advertisers will have to get more creative in order to keep people watching the stuff that pays.
The conventional wisdom amongst agencies has been that advertisers will simply have to make ads (etc) so entertaining, so brilliantly compelling, that consumers will seek them out. Sweet as this idea is, it's a little like campaigning for world peace - worthy but unrealistic. Only a very small minority of brands will ever produce content like this, on a regular basis.
But there are now emerging some more thoughtful and truly creative solutions to this problem - and they're coming from media owners, rather than agencies or advertisers. They involve targeting consumers much more closely, making ad-watching more social, and giving viewers more control over what ads they watch. This piece in FastCompany, on Hulu, outlines some fascinating new approaches:
While one ad is showing, Hulu will display three other options, as in the picture below. If you don’t like the one in front of you, you can choose one of the others. That's a better experience for users, Kilar says. As for the advertisers, the first brand doesn’t have to pay for that impression. Only the second brand pays—and they actually pay a higher rate, because the user chose them. That, in turn, generates more money for the content owner.
Link to article.
