More debate about TV ads

AdAge has a report from the ANA conference that highlights the increasing belief among marketers that the effectiveness of TV advertising is diminishing.  In a survey released there yesterday of over 100 of the biggest spending advertisers:

78% believed TV advertising is less effective than two years ago
Almost 70% of advertisers believe DVRs and VOD will reduce or destroy the effectiveness of the 30 second TV ad
Many are looking at alternatives such as branded entertainment within TV programs (61%), TV program sponsorships (55%), interactive advertising during TV programs (48%), online video ads (45%) and product placement (44%).  Eighty percent of advertisers will spend more of their advertising budget on Web advertising and 68% of advertisers will look to search engine marketing.

So, it looks like there is a lot to do to convince marketers to not turn away from TV.  But it strikes me that the alternatives really won't help.  The alternatives above seem to fall in to the trap of creating more pollution in an attempt to solve the problem of too much pollution.  Maybe cutting the number of ad minutes would help, but (and I know I'm getting repetitive) the biggest thing we can do is to put some focus back on the content.  As David Kiley says on his blog about the survey: "What I worry about is that advertisiers will leave TV for the Net and other mediums not because people are watching far less TV, but because they can't crack the code on creating clever, compelling and relevant TV ads".

And to that end, it's worth reading the article by Joseph Frydl in AdAge on a topic I've blogged about before - brands' lack of response to the growing sophistication of poular entertainment (a subject fantastically explored by Steven Johnson in Everything Bad Is Good For You)

Comments

[Anand C]

A couple of great examples of fun and engaging (the dictionary meaning, not the industry one, which of course we don't really have yet) ad content are the M Night Shyamalan spot for American Express, and something that cracked me up the other day for the Honda Element:
http://automobiles.honda.com/element/index.aspx

Also, check out Joseph Jaffe's post on the ANA conference. Apparently he's the only blogger there:

http://www.jaffejuice.com/2006/03/the_parrot_is_o.html

[Josh Bernoff]

I'm the guy from Forrester that ran the panel and delivered the research at the ANA.

You're right -- it's clutter that's driving the advertisers nuts. It came up when we polled them.

The winners are people who tie their TV ads to Web sites and other interactive marketing.

[Gareth]

Josh
Thanks for posting. Agree with you. I think it's about changing the definition of campaign from a number of TV executions joined together by an idea into an idea (or as it used to be called one execution) that is executed across channels and somehow involves people in a more active way.

[Richard]

Gareth, just read this - sorry. Excellent observation about the 'give up and go home with my ball' defeatism in the industry.