By A SHOOT Staff Report

This week, in a SHOOT survey of traditional and digital agency creative directors, we gain varied perspectives on broadband video advertising. Consider for example that March Madness on Demand, the NCAA basketball tourney, is a premier online long-form experience that brings mass audience to the web. Yet arguably broadband video advertising hasn’t fully capitalized on that event, much less online program experiences for which there is less audience fervor and attention. So with that hook, SHOOT posed the following query:
   
    Q:What does broadband video advertising need to do to come closer to realizing its potential as a stand-alone medium? Or as a valuable complement to traditional TV commercials as part of a broader integrated ad campaign?  If you would like, please also tell us about a recent broadband video spot that you were involved in during the last few months and whether it was part of a broader integrated ad campaign.

    Here’s a sampling of the feedback we received:

Mauro Alencar, executive VP/ executive creative director, Publicis Modem, San Francisco

Clients and agencies need to keep in mind that the biggest opportunity that broadband video presents to advertisers is that it gives brands the ability to immensely increase the relevance of their ads by targeting very accurately, while still reaching mass numbers. Audiences today are way more cynical towards advertising and, thanks to the multitude of channels through which someone can get access to the same content (i.e.: You can watch LOST on TV, get it on iTunes, stream it on ABC’s site, watch it on-demand through your cable company, etc.), people are increasingly unwilling to quietly accept having their content interrupted by ads for products they are not interested in at all. Although it sucks from a purely creative perspective, we are getting to a point of saturation with the amount of content available out there where targeting can be as important as a great idea.

Alan Feldenkris, CEO, Brand New World, New York

This question has been long discussed, and for all those who claim that broadband advertising must not just be a :30 cut-down, we continue to see just that in the marketplace…a flood of existing video assets running in full :30 or :15 form, slapped into the available broadband well. 
    At the same time, very little controls exist to ensure that the creative running is contextual at all to the editorial.  How many times have you clicked on a news story of a serious nature only to have to endure a humorous car ad or something completely out of context?  As I write this, I just followed a headline-link from a major news site to view a video news story of a severely neglected child, and, voila, had to sit through a humorous :15 commercial for Yellow Pages.  Traditional advertisers would never stand for that sort of “adjacency” in non-digital media and we in the digital space should demand the same.
    The key then, for making broadband video advertising work, is to first create, or even re-purpose an original message for the environment…it can be done inexpensively and more importantly, with much more authenticity and resonance than just hacking up an existing TV spot.  Secondly, we must demand that the publishers develop the type of contextual targeting capabilities for broadband inventories that we’d expect from other media…having our ads crammed in non-relevant, and even potentially offensive placement areas, will yield negative returns and not move this exciting medium forward. 
    Like all forms of media advertising, great success is found in a multi-platform campaign which has all components complementing one another, not trying to replicate what the other does well.  Broadband video offers a brand the ability to communicate their brand values and propositions through a lens inherently more authentic, honest and resonant…not just convenient because they have an existing :30 or :15 laying around.
    Brand New World is currently involved with a CPG brand on a project which will use broadband video to deliberately complement the brand message on television and in print, which will deliver the core brand messaging with the use of actors.  The interactive video assets, however, will utilize real people telling their stories in an honest and authentic manner.  Both approaches are on strategy and on brand footprint, and together they provide a richer brand story as a whole. 

Craig Markus, executive VP/executive creative director, McCann Erickson, New York

TV, magazine and outdoor are part of a language advertisers have been speaking fluently for years. Digital is part of a new language full of new words like:  web banner, web site, micro site, web film, pop-up, MySpace page, Facebook application, second life, etc.
    Clients and agencies have to become fluent in a new language even before they understand the basic words. There is still a lot of confusion, uncertainty and ambiguity making it hard for clients and agencies to decide the best places to put creative, what works best on each, and what consumers are willing to tolerate.
    But the same simple rule applies here to digital advertising that applies to every other medium: Consumers don’t hate advertising, they just hate crappy advertising. And let’s be honest, most advertising, digital or otherwise, is still crap.
    The online programming format is the closest to traditional television, which probably explains why it hasn’t caught on.  And if consumers are fast-forwarding thru bad ads on TV, they are really going to get pissed when they can’t bypass them in a world where they do have so much control.
    The most interesting thing I’ve seen recently has been Hulu.com. They have discovered how to offer a large amount of quality programs AND a relatively acceptable balance of spots (three spots per half hour–no annoying commercial pods). Less crap, more show. Now if we could make better ads.

Rei Inamoto, global creative director, AKQA San Francisco

In this media-saturated world, I don’t believe any one medium is a “stand-alone” medium anymore. What makes advertising and marketing more compelling and effective is how the mix of different media works together and talks together.
    Broadband video advertising today, to a great extent, is still being used as a “copy & paste” solution: traditional TV spots being “pasted” into an online ad space. It’s still being treated as a disruptive medium, just like TV commercials are.
    When we do things online, we need to let consumers be in control as much as possible. Just as pop-up ads, which was a disruptive medium, have become a no-no of online advertising, if we keep treating video advertising the same way as TV advertising, it will not be embraced.
    In order for broadband video advertising to be more meaningful, we need to think of what “value” it can bring to the consumers.

Adam Wilson, group creative director, Organic, San Francisco

Aggregating the NCAA tournament into an on-demand format without requiring sign-up and allowing the audience to syndicate the content on their social profiles is huge. The video experience itself has even more potential, for both advertiser and audience. What if CBS offered an enhanced, interactive video player where users could pause the game, mouse over elements in the scene for quick hits of information?  For example, clicking a player could spawn an overlay, like a trading card, listing stats or top 10 video highlights from the season. That “interactive trading card” could be portable, allowing users to snag it for their profiles. Or let users create markers in the video timeline so they can add comments to specific points in the action and share their own remixed highlight reel. For the audience, a deeper level of engagement–for the advertiser, more contextual reach. In short, make the viewing experience less like TV.

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