The electronics company LG recently had an ad pulled from Australian TV stations for a new TV recording device. The commercial touted the benefits of being able to skip commercials.
The ad said something which every viewer could appreciate: “When you replay, you can skip the ads.” However, after networks pulled the ad, LG had to submit a different ad for the product which featured the considerably less appealing: “And when you replay, you can skip straight back to the action.”
While the networks may have won this time, it’s obvious that TV recording technology is here to stay and that the power balance, at least ostensibly, will shift in favour of consumers.
1. Product placement, sponsorship and other “non-ad” ads.
I’ve recently been watching an HBO Drama The Wire and one thing that caught my eye is the omnipresence of Heineken beer, usually featured with the label nicely facing the camera. Obviously some moolah is changing hands there. I’ve also lived in Japan, where I swear almost everything on TV is an ad. Whenever a product, place or event is favourably reviewed, you can bet dollars to doughnuts that money is involved (a fact that is almost never disclosed). Me, I prefer journalistic impartiality, but that’s clearly on the way out.
2. More precise targeting of messages, even mass media ones.
Following the inevitable rise of TV recording technology, some industry experts have commented that advertising is not dead, but that advertisers will be forced to target their ads more precisely at viewers to make them want to watch the ads.It’s also fairly easy to conceive of a system that serves ads according to individual viewer habits and preferences, perhaps on a “pay per impression” or pay per action” model (mmmm? the Google Adwords of TV marketing?)While this concept would obviously be many times more effective than current mass-broadcast technology, it’s still “push” marketing. While there’s some mileage in this concept, search-based marketing is likely to return higher conversion rates and ROI (cf. Google Adwords Search conversion rates vs Content conversion rates – search is almost always higher).
3. The rise of education-based lead generation and marketing.
Reports, White Papers, DVDs, Audio Programs, software etc. will be given away (or sold) with the aim of enticing prospects to “self-select” and allow advertisers to focus their energies and promotional dollars on high-probability prospects rather than anyone and everyone. I’m now currently conducting lead generation campaigns for companies who traditionally wouldn’t have touched this “direct marketing” stuff with a bargepole.
4. Accountable, by-the-metrics marketing will become an imperative.
If you don’t use targeted, cost effective and above all accountable marketing strategies, prepare to lose business. These include both online and offline marketing efforts.
5. PR and spin will surpass traditional marketing tactics.
Making products and services into news will be a skill for which companies will pay handsomely.
6. Even narrower niches.
Gaining greater “share of mind” will become even more difficult, and we can expect more focus on more highly-specialised niche markets as opposed to line-extension or diversification strategies.
7. Blue Ocean Strategies.
The rewards of value innovation will become even greater as smart companies refuse to mash themselves to a pulp butting heads with their competitors in hyper-crowded markets. Instead, the most successful companies and brands will strive to create uncontested market space – easier said than done.
This fellow Ascot is a slanderer.
No one — and I mean no one — working on the Wire or at HBO got money from Heineken or for any other product that appeared on the show. The writers wrote the products into the story that the story seemed to require. They sought and received no compensation but used real products to create simple versimilitude.
Yet this goof gets on the internet and alleges transactions that never occurred, having done no reporting or fact-checking whatsoever. Please desist in distributing this libel.
A writer on the show.