We interrupt this broadcast… is this really the end of the age of interruption?

A new series of blogs about the broadcast industry, narrated by David Brennan…

“Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetick.”

We can trace the beginning of the end of the age of interruption to the quote above, made by Samuel Johnson in 1759. In the two and a half centuries since, many similar claims have been made but it is only in the last decade that the media industry itself has repeatedly predicted the end of the interruptive model, as we enter the ‘age of engagement’, which itself has given way to the ‘age of dialogue’ since the advent of Web 2.0.

I’ve always been suspicious of claims about the end of this or the death of that; it is evidence of the binary thinking that has come to typify the digital revolution and is often a highly simplistic way of analysing complex eco-systems.

Fortunately, a more reasoned view arrives with the launch of Deloitte’s annual look at the state of the TV market to coincide with the Edinburgh TV Festival. It demonstrates quite conclusively that interruptive advertising is still the most effective way to generate both engagement and dialogue, and without it the vast majority of brands would probably struggle to have enough consumers within their orbit to remain in business.

More than 650,000 brands advertise in the UK every year – if they relied purely on the dialogue they generate among consumers, how many ‘conversations’ with or about them would we need to have in order to make them viable? Do the math!

The Deloitte report highlights the challenge in several ways. The time we spend with TV compared to social networks, for example, isn’t just significantly different, it is on a different scale. We collectively spend seven billion hours a month with TV compared to less than 3% of that – 200 million hours – on all social networks combined.

That helps to explain why, according to the Keller Fay ‘Talktrack’ research, only 7% of our brand conversations occur online; the vast majority (c.75%) are conducted face-to-face, many of them while consuming television together.

The report also shows that, contrary to popular wisdom, the more ways we have of avoiding interruptive advertising, the less we seem to avoid it. Just five years ago, PVR penetration was in single figures, and we watched an average of less than 40 TV commercials at normal speed every day. Now penetration of the ultimate ad avoidance technology is close to 50%, and we consume an average of 47 commercials a day – almost twenty per cent higher!

But it is when people are asked about the role of advertising and how it impacts on them that a totally different picture to the ‘end of the age of interruption’ narrative emerges.

When they were asked which advertising media had most impact on them, almost two thirds mentioned television, more than twice the level of the next biggest (press) and streets ahead of the more ignorable forms of advertising online, all of which were in the low single digits.

Even more tellingly, when asked to nominate their most memorable campaign, 80% nominated a TV campaign; no other medium polled above 3%. Ironically, the enthusiasm for TV advertising is strongest among 18-24 year olds. To quote the report; “TV advertising’s continued strength in 2011 can be attributed to three main factors: companies need to advertise; television excels at the brand-building and awareness-raising component of this and, in general, most of us are accepting, if not (quietly) appreciative of television advertising, with younger age groups being TV ads’ strongest protagonists.”

Of course, interruption needs to lead to engagement and, increasingly, dialogue. If interruptive advertising engages, it drives the bottom line far more effectively (as seen in last year’s IPA study on creative effectiveness, showing creatively-awarded ads were 11 times more effective at driving market share than the rest). But, without the power of interruption, even the most creative and appreciated brand communications struggle to find a viable audience. After all, if the idea is strong and the creative is engaging, why wouldn’t you wish to reach the widest audience possible?

No, the age of interruption is not dead, it is very much alive. It’s just that it is no longer an end in itself but, like broadcast media in general, it can now be a gateway to better things.