It was back in 2003 that Faultline first mentioned that watching TV with something approaching 25 minutes an hour of interruptive advertising, was something that the internet era had to get around. No-one wants to watch that much advertising and as soon as a choice is offered, they won’t.
There are multiple ways of getting around this 50 year old mainstay of global entertainment, but most broadcasters will have to be brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century, and spend more time and effort trying to import the TV business model to the internet, rather than the other way around.
The ways around include offering non-interruptive interactive advertising, which is seen on the edge of a screen or which is mostly an invite to view some offline long form advertising content. This can be strengthened by making these offers more appropriate by using addressable advertising systems which take into account demographics, past behavior and location.
On DVRs there has also been the idea of offering persistent static advertising images throughout the fast forward process, alongside push VoD long form content; and on IPTV there have been experiments using the EPG as a place to trigger interactive requests for advertising. On mobile TV the elongated channel change times have been harnessed to show adverts. There have even been huge experiments in product placement, including systems that offer product placement on advertising networks, where a piece of video offers different products placed day to day, by swapping out ad elements.
There is also the idea that video content triggers automatic search advertising, clickable or storable, on the edge of the viewing area.
But despite the availability of such techniques and of the technique of showing ‘overlay’ advertising, most online video is monetized with advertising through pre-roll and post roll video adverts. Overlay advertising doesn’t interrupt viewing, and offers an almost subliminal brand effect (by not concentrating on it, it is thought that advertising messages do not meet the full cynical resistance that most people have for advertised products).
It is almost as if advertisers are saying ‘Please fast forward through my adverts,’ because I’d rather not change, and keeps them focused on 30 second multiple advertising slots which clearly fail on the internet.
So it is with some surprise that we see research from ITV, an independent UK broadcaster, which suggests something we all know intuitively ‘ that overlay advertising on web sites does not detract from viewing pleasure.
ITV surveyed 1200 people about overlay advertising currently being trialed on its ITV Local web sites and only 9% said that it detracted from their overall viewing experience. Pre roll advertising scored higher at 14%.
The survey by ITV’s Consumer research used something called a net promoter score (NPS) – a measure of how likely a user is to recommend a website to a friend or relative. Net promoter scores are widely used as indicators of customer satisfaction. It works on the assumption that to merit a recommendation to a friend or relative implies a high level of satisfaction and trust by the user.
Respondents were randomly allocated one of four video clips, each with a different type of advertising: pre roll, pre roll with a countdown, an overlay ad and no advertising at all.
It sounds like the study wasn’t really all that conclusive, in that no particular format generated a significantly higher NPS than any other. It seems that there had been a perception that overlay adverts were ‘more’ irritating than pre-roll ads, and this study is being seen as proof that they are not actually worse than pre-roll ads, though we suspect they are better.
The survey came through a partnership between ITV’s Future Technology department and California start-up Keystream which developed the overlay advertising platform for online video.
As far as we can remember, the first time that overlay advertising was put forward as an idea was in the initial designs of the Adobe Media Player, and have been aggressively taken up by both Google and Microsoft, as a genuine new format. But so far advertisers and agencies appear to have shied clear of them as they require a new and creative approach.
The Keystream application which places graphical images inside video automatically, is currently being tested by ITV’s Future Technology team on the user generated content (UGC) section of ITV Local.
The system uses object detection and tracking algorithms to find suitable clear space in the video sequences and enables adverts to be placed inside the video automatically. Previous overlays technologies just use the same place on the video each time which can get in the way of the scene.
When a user interacts with the graphical image that appears, it animates, allowing users to link to a specific advertising message. When a user clicks on an ad, the video is automatically paused until the user returns. If no action is taken then the advertising message simply fades away.
ITV says that the average click through rate on these adverts is around 5%, around five times more than the click through on pre roll video ads which means that it if they are not putting viewers off, you’ be crazy Not to use them.
ITV Local’s Director of Content Lindsay Charlton said: ‘We’re keen to explore and understand new ways of offering value to advertisers while maintaining a great user experience. This trial puts ITV at the forefront of testing new and innovative ways of connecting brands with our audience and is one of many opportunities we are exploring in this exciting space.
‘Initial results are very encouraging and show a much higher click through rate than pre roll and we have extended the trial to national brands to test this further.’
Like we said, that’s obvious but finally at least one broadcaster has some research on it.