Influx

Broadcasters, advertisers and their agencies have to be willing to experiment with new formats for television advertising, if they want consumers to keep watching. It appears that the automotive companies, who have the most to lose from disappearing viewers, who are emerging as the most innovative.

The latest breakthrough comes from the UK, where Nissan, together with TBWA have developed a 24-minute ad. This film is going to be broken up into 24 one-minute segments and shown as ads on programs like Fox’s 24. It’s a smart idea, that’s buzzworthy, and if done well, is likely to engage the viewer and help both advertiser and broadcaster and perhaps if the content is so good, shouldn’t Fox be paying Nissan or at least discount the airtime?

Broadcasters need to embrace this new future and bring innovative solutions to their agency partners, rather than have agencies struggle to work within the rigid framework that currently exists. It would be interesting to see if the more youthful broadcasters like MTV and Fuse would be among the first willing to experiment.

Can you imagine if there were options for everything from 5 second to 5 minute commercials in prime-time and everything in-between?

It would make advertising viewing a lot more interesting and perhaps stop people reaching for their fast forward buttons on their PVRs.