Agencies Trying To Find Ways To Cope With Digital Video Recorders

Ad agencies are spending many hours and dollars these days trying to figure out how to deal with Digital Video Recorders, or DVRs. A new article on Adage.com discusses how Fox is trying to take the necessary steps to have their advertisers skipped over completely.

Here is the link to the article:http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=116416

The article discusses the possibility of sending relevant advertisements to your TiVo box once you have recorded and watched a program. When you go back to watch the program a second time, you may see new advertisements, as with the third or fourth time. But how does this solve the problem of viewers skipping the ads? If I recorded the program to begin with, obviously I'm fast forwarding through ads. Not because the ads bored me, but because I just didn't want to watch them. Even if the worlds funniest commercials are inserted, does that mean I'm going to all of a sudden sit and watch? Odds are not.

I have another idea though that is probably being considered somewhere. I've blogged in the past about pre-roll video and other 1 to 1 video impressions that advertisers can achieve. In my mind, the only way to make money off DVR advertisements is to have a mandatory 5-8 second advertisement play before the program begins that I've recorded. Will this make TiVo subscribers irate? Maybe. But the point of it is that you keep the ad under 8 seconds which doesn't give the viewer enough of a chance to get mad that an ad is playing. Placing new advertisements during the programming where the old ones were will do nothing but give me something to watch while I fast forward at the speed of x4.

If you sell this like a sponsorship and make it relevant then you will achieve a high CPM, much like pre-roll video and you will make advertisers happy because they cracked the DVR problem. If you make the advertisements relevant then you will keep the viewers from complaining as well.

This also gives the advertisers an opportunity to create new content specifically for programs and it also will prove to be a trackable and measurable ad form. The ad opportunity would then fall into the category of sponsorships.

For example, Office Depot can place a relevant targeted ad on a recorded version of "The Office." They can make this ad specific to the show and focus it around paper products and office supplies. A pharmaceutical company can place an advertisement around one of the many medical programs on tv such as "ER," "Grey's Anatomy," or 'House."

Comcast has already began to perfect this sale in one form with their "OnDemand" programming. If you click channel 1 on your Comcast remote then you will be directed to the "OnDemand" programming. Then click on any program such as fitness, local info, pets, etc. and you will then see a relevant advertisement that you won't even grab the remote to fast forward through because it plays so quickly.

I don't have the magical answer to this DVR problem but I disagree with the way Fox is currently going at it. Maybe the article was written wrong, maybe I interpreted it wrong, but I see other opportunities with DVR viewers and it starts with sponsorships at the beginning of your recorded programming.