Beyond the 30 second spot… must do better!
A new series of blogs about the broadcast industry, narrated by David Brennan…
At the RTS’ Cambridge Convention last week, there was an exhortation from Fru Hazlitt of ITV to the advertising community to get creative with TV airtime.
Speaking on a panel, Hazlitt said advertisers were not maximising the engagement they could get through their TV advertising because of an “appalling” failure to move beyond the 30 second spot.
Given the relative freedom advertisers have nowadays to get creative with spots, the increasing array of opportunities to move beyond the ‘standard’ spot and the massive benefits that are available to advertisers who are prepared to invest in creativity, I sympathise with her views; but it can’t just come from the advertisers.
Although TV commercial viewing is at a record high, much of this is a by-product of more exposure to commercial channels, especially the higher minutage non-terrestrials. Viewers have a multiplicity of things they can do to avoid ads and there is evidence starting to emerge that they may be starting to ‘tune out’ a bit more; not in anything like the numbers stated by the digerati, but nonetheless, their future willingness to sit through the ad breaks cannot be taken for granted.
A growing number of advertisers have been creative with their spot strategy, utilising the new creative freedoms to generate a sense of an event around a campaign. Thus, in recent years, we have seen some very clever stunts (the Honda skydiving ad springs to mind), sequencing (e.g. the IKEA ads), advertorials, roadblocking, extended copy, competitions, blipverts, top & tails and a host of other ways to stand out beyond the creativity of the ad content itself.
The IPA study on creative effectiveness, which is due to be revisited later this year, suggests that creative ads can be eleven times more efficient than others in terms of driving market share per pound spent. It would be no surprise whatsoever if creative use of television airtime did not create similar efficiencies; certainly there are enough case studies on the Thinkbox website to suggest this is the case. So, why haven’t more advertisers taken Fru’s advice?
From the conversations I have with media planners, I think the broadcasters also need to make more of a contribution. It is most definitely in their interests to find ways of holding audiences through commercial breaks but a sporadic approach to offering creative spot opportunities coupled with a highly commoditised airtime market does not offer nearly enough encouragement.
We have had some terrific concepts from Channel 4 (their themed comedy breaks have been one of my favourite examples), ITV (whose work with the likes of Argos and HP in taking over whole breaks has yielded success), affinity breaks on five and ‘breakovers’ on Sky (I can still remember the four minute ad for FIFA 09 taking the whole half-time break of a Chelsea – Man United game).
The ever-resourceful Honda team is now leading the way in making the spot itself interactive, through their recent Honda Jazz app, which can ‘catch’ characters off the TV ad. Expect to see a great deal more two-screen ‘orchestrated media’ approaches like this over the next year or so.
All of the above are great examples of advertisers and broadcasters working together to make spot advertising work harder and more effectively. This is in addition to how they are innovating in areas like sponsorship, AFP, TVOD and product placement. They are just the tip of the iceberg, and there is the added advantage that such creativity keeps viewers glued to the ad breaks. So, I’m tempted to ask, what is the problem?
I think the issue is not that advertisers are reluctant to innovate, to think beyond the thirty second spot, but that it hasn’t become the norm, and for that the broadcasters need to share some of the blame. Because, in most cases, the innovation from advertisers is about standing out, doing something differently, making a point and so innovations in this area will tend to be one offs, or linked to specific campaigns (like Honda’s) based on innovation.
The broadcasters could introduce far more in the way of ongoing opportunities to ensure viewers stayed engaged, in terms of providing an infrastructure for innovation (like more regular themed breaks or affinity breaks or contextual opportunities), whilst also providing their own contributions in terms of keeping the viewers present and engaged. For example, I have seen isolated examples over the years where breaks have been top & tailed (e.g. what happened next, trivia questions, on-air competitions) that can most definitely be shown to have kept viewers present and engaged. Why is it still the exception rather than the norm?
Many years ago, I ran a study for the ITV network on break structure and audience retention, and even then it was apparent that how breaks were structured and what they featured could have a powerful effect on audience retention and churn.
A number of other studies have shown the ecology of the commercial break can impact on advertising cut-through and effectiveness. Strange, then, that with all of this evidence there are still only sporadic attempts to innovate in our use of the airtime rather than the creative content itself, from broadcasters and advertisers alike. Then again, maybe the 30 second spot just works.