Guerrilla Zappers Of The World, Unite!

This smiley fellow over here is Peter Chernin, President of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.  Peter spoke last week at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association conference.  His remarks, and those of fellow moguls Bob Wright of NBC and Bob Iger of Disney were reported in today's issue of AdAge (sub req'd.).

Here's the article's lede:

Although the broadcast networks publicly play down the impact of ad-skipping technologies, it was clear from a panel at last week's National Cable & Telecommunications Association conference that TV moguls see the spread of digital video recorders as a serious threat to their ad base.

Funny, isn't it?  Who do they publicly play it down to?  People who can't read?  People who don't care about what's happening?   Their shareholders?  I digress.

The article then goes on to delineate Chernin's plan for, "battling DVRs in three ways."  Ah ha!  Using the language of warfare to speak about your customers!  Great...I always love this part.  What's the plan, Pete? 

First, live events!  The first is "live sports, live news, live events," which, Pete says, viewers tend to skip less.

"The CPMs [cost of an ad per thousand viewers] on sports, local news and events, and American Idol and things people want to watch live is only going to increase," he added.

People want to watch live events live, right?  OK, here's how we watch American Idol in our house.  We wait until 15 minutes after the show starts, and then begin watching it.  That lets us zap through the commercials and catch the end of the show at the same time as the rest of America (which doesn't really matter to us anyway, but it will give some people that good "national watercooler" feeling we all used to get when we knew we were all watching Ed Sullivan at the same time.)   Are we the only 15-minute time shifters?  Uh, I don't think so.  That makes the higher CPM charge a little shaky, right?  Score one for the guerrillas, Pete.

Second strategy, "get consumers to pay directly for content, such as with video-on-demand services and DVDs."  OK, fine.  But, what about all those hours of over-the-air broadcast?  How does this strategy help that, Pete?  Sounds like a bit of a tactical surrender to the guerrillas to me.

OK, the big one must be third. 

His third approach is that network ad departments work more closely with advertisers to provide them with branded entertainment sponsorship deals or product integrations. "We have to rethink the way we sell advertising," Mr. Chernin said. "When we put six to eight 30-second commercials back to back, we put up a sign saying 'Go away now.'"

He said the answer was shorter ads or maybe longer ads or greater promotion. Mr. Chernin said Ford Motor Co.'s commercial-free sponsorship of the season-premiere of the Fox series 24 was the most successful commercial in the automaker's history.

So, longer ads?  What, I can't skip those?  Shorter ads?  Ditto?  "Commercial-free sponsorship," now, there's an idea with legs.  Just show us the program and don't  interrupt it until the end when you tell us you sponsored it.  But, the program's over.  I don't get it.  Why do I hang around to see who sponsored it?  Of course, those of us who get product placement will know, but that's not really all that bad; "spot the placement" is sort of a fun game, actually.

So, that's it from Pete.  Wright blathered on about how this whole technology thing had maybe gone too far.

It [DVR technology] doesn't do anything positive for those of us in the content business, [who are doing] the creating, the distributing, the packaging. It may be that we've gone too far with the distribution of DVRs. 

Whoo boy.

Iger, coming out of the gate as CEO-in-waiting with a blast of incisiveness said,

The broadcast business, because it relies on one revenue stream, is a more fragile and vulnerable business in a world that is changing dramatically through technology.

Yowzah, that's for sure!

And, one last piece of wisdom from Wright:

You've going to have to encourage people to watch with the advertising [!!] or pay to watch it without the ads; somehow, we have to think in those terms. {!! added}

Boy, if I were a TV advertiser today, I'd be verrrry worried about the kind of thinking I'm hearing from my broadcast partners.  Not a lot of creativity there, that's for sure.

One thing's clear: these guys really ARE scared. 

And they should be.  They've been pumping ads at "eyeballs" for so long they've forgotten whose money is behind all this.  Customers money.  We buy the crap they advertise and broadcast.  And they've treated us like shit: "shut up, sit there and watch this Viagra ad and we'll get back to the news when we're damned good and ready; oh, maybe after this Maalox ad." 

Decades of this kind of treatment has created TV's greatest nightmare: a whole army of pissed-off guerrilla viewers, with zappers.

UPDATE - Listen to the Bob Garfield's NPR piece, "An Impending Period of Transitional Chaos For Media," in which he describes the rapidly changing world of broadcast marketing in pretty stark terms.  Don't miss the quotes from serious advertisers, like P&G's Jim Stengel, Global Marketing Officer: "I truly believe and I know that many of you do, that today's marketing model is broken." 

For a final, doomsday pespective, there's David Poltrecht, Head of Research for CBS,

And if, in fact, that current system deteriorates to the point that advertisers and marketers abandon it, I don't see anything that's going to replace it, and the entire marketing infrastructure of the country and the economy is going to be diminished, and that's a lot  bigger problem than just a network television problem.

So, if you love America, drop that damned zapper!  Sheesh!!

 

Comments

[Kristin]

Who doesn't watch Idol like that? I know Coke is a big sponsor with the Coke couch and the Coke cups in front of Randy, Paula and Simon. I do rewind (or ask the Tivo remote holder) to go back and see the funny commercials that the contestants are in, like the Ford ones - the advertisers need to be more creative like that. All network shows that are Tivo-ed are watched 15-20 minutes after their start time. In fact, sometimes I get confused and forget that I can actually start watching Deadwood at the official starting time!

[Tom Guarriello]

Well, hello, Kristin! I do the same thing with ads I want to watch. Funny thing is, choosing to watch a commercial is so much more important to marketers than enduring a commercial, but so much more unpredictable and, therefore, unreliable/difficult to count than the current "captive eyeball" metrics.

Thanks for the comment.

[david parmet]

"and the entire marketing infrastructure of the country and the economy is going to be diminished, and that's a lot  bigger problem than just a network television problem."

All because my children want to watch Dora without the commercials.

My God, what have we done???

[Tom Guarriello]

That's right, David. Between your daughter and out-sourcing, the entire economy of the country is crashing around our ears.

I hope you're all satisfied!

[Laura]

And the poor slobs who don't DVR do what we've always done when Seacrest goes on a Maalox break...flip around, talk to each other, read something with the mute button on. Time for the networks to stop underestimating the public, even those who watch IdolonFox. True that, Tom!

[Tom Guarriello]

The dirty little secret is out: "we never watched those stupid ads anyway." But, the problem is, media and agencies could always sell clients on the fact that we did. "See the numbers; see the 'share'?" Now, the man (and woman) behind the curtain have been revealed and the whole shell game is about to collapse.

Thanks for stopping by, Laurie!