Mark Popkiewicz, CEO of MirriAd, the embedded advertising specialist, looks at the way content owners and brands can improve advertising online, and how the current restrictions on broadcast advertising could be relaxed to help the industry survive a downturn in traditional ad-spend.

Future Media

In the 1980s the market was relatively simple to understand and limited to three main outlets – broadcast television, cinema and VHS tape. The content was all linear, the viewing experience passive and the advertising opportunities were well established. Fast forward to 2008 and the environment is very different but in many ways the advertising industry has failed to keep pace with the complexities.

Consumer consumption of video, in all its formats, has changed fundamentally in a very short space of time. Online is growing strongly, mobile is developing and the broadcast sector is being heavily impacted, both by these alternative platforms and the growth of digital video recorders that allow us to skip ads when we want.

Despite the changes, the advertising industry continues to persevere with the traditional 30 second ad slot in broadcast television and is continuing to push banners, overlays and pop-ups online despite these formats being almost universally unpopular. It’s not a terribly sophisticated approach and if not implemented very carefully, can do more harm than good to a brand.

Relaxing the Rules

The one enduring success of video advertising has been product placement. In the UK, paid-for product placement is currently banned on broadcast television, but with the value of the traditional 30-second advert diminishing, ITV executive chairman, Michael Grade, is once again calling for the ban to be relaxed. He recently claimed that media regulator Ofcom’s current code is “complete nonsense” (C21media.net, 4th November) and his comments come as the Department for Culture Media & Sport consults on a potential relaxation of the regulatory environment.

It seems that the biggest problem with product placement in the UK market is that many fail to understand how it could be used without compromising quality and user experience i.e. integrating brands into video in a relevant way and potentially enhancing core content with an added dose of realism. After all, which British high street is devoid of branded shop fronts? If done with sensitivity to the content in question (and is transparent to viewers) product placement maintains the flow of the programme, places the product in question in an appropriate setting, and builds brand awareness. The evidence is in the growth in this sector of the market with analysts predicting a compound annual growth rate of 33.7 percent and an expected worldwide value exceeding US$14Bn by 2010.

In fact, product placement is an established and growing market in broadcast television in a wide range of markets around the world. No-one can argue that the brand alignment of Ford’s new ‘Ka’ with the Bond girl in ‘Quantum of Solace’ will do the brand any harm, but the process wouldn’t have been without its risks for the company. The difficulty is that until recently paid-for product placement had to be undertaken at the time of production, making it highly inflexible and costly. Ford would have needed to give MGM/ Sony Pictures details of the model to be featured, along with their campaign angles as far back as the release of ‘Casino Royale’. In addition, they would not have had access to the script to know exactly when the car would appear, or indeed even if it would appear in the final edit.

Furthermore, the life of the placement will be limited both in terms of duration and geography. Should the film be re-released ten years from now, the ‘Ka’ featured isn’t likely to be the model Ford would choose to represent the same quirky values. The potential rewards for film tie-ins such as this are high, but the uncertainty and risks are many.

The digital product integration opportunity

We now have the tools available to remove all these obstacles. The embedded advertising industry can now deliver sophisticated product placement strategies that enable brands to see where and how their product will appear in advance. Brand insertion opportunities can be automatically identified in video assets (from user-generated content to Hollywood blockbusters), and suitable digital images can be seamlessly incorporated. The result for brand owners is that their products appear as if they were part of the original production whether as a physical object such as a car or cereal packet, a still image on a billboard, or as a video, and can be swapped out and replaced as needed.

The 30-second advertising slot hasn’t died because it works and it’s easy to implement. Seamless and editorially relevant product integration simply complements this by approaching the target audience from a different angle. So by using digital product integration that expands the reach and relevance of the brand, an embedded advertising platform, integrated within the sales and content pipeline, may just deliver the sophistication the market now needs to fully exploit its video assets. It has the potential to satisfy all of the players in this increasingly complex game – relevant and valuable brand association for advertisers, much needed revenues for content owners and broadcasters, and an uninterrupted viewing experience for consumers. What’s to argue with?