TV renaissance changes future of advertising

With the recent release of Multichoice's Personal Video Recorder (PVR) the viewer and not the broadcaster is in charge of the playlist. If the lowering price trend in other technology applies to PVR's (and I can't see any reason why it shouldn't), prices will soon mean an increased PVR uptake.

We're excited about this at Platypus Productions as we see branded TV as vital to the future of broadcasting. We've realised that if marketers want to survive they are going to have to start providing marketing content that consumers can use, that's entertaining, engaging and that weaves in a brand message unobtrusively.

In the UK it seems as if the revolution has begun in earnest. Elisabeth Murdoch, CEO and chairman of Shine, one of the UK's top 20 independent TV production companies, says that future growth in advertising "will come from how advertisers adapt to new opportunities and consumer behaviour."

Sir Alan Sugar, Chairman of Amstrad puts it more bluntly: "Digital devices make it easier than ever to programme out ads, and what kind of brain-dead viewer is going to sit there solemnly watching them if they have the option of jumping? So in my view, advertising has had it, on television."

Simon Woodroffe, founder of Yo! Sushi, the wildly successful restaurant chain in the UK and someone who is featured in many TV programmes says: "TV is about to come of age. Here at the start of the 21st century, we are just reaching the point where television bursts its shackles and sets us all free. No longer will we sit passively on the sofa, with nothing better to do than watch darts. We will snatch television from the grasp of the broadcasters and make it our own."

BMW rose to this challenge in 2001 when they commissioned Guy Ritchie of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels fame to make sixteen short films. This ingenious strategy employed a new model of advertising.

Instead of having their favourite programme interrupted by yet another advert, people could choose to watch a short film that they felt actually offered them value. BMW came out smiling in more ways than one. People who saw the films were in an empowered frame of mind. This created the potential for a positive response to the advertiser's message. Also, BMW were considered at the cutting edge of advertising even if viewers didn't think it through consciously. This is just the kind of connection marketers need to make.

As Simon Woodroffe puts it: "At some level we are all begging to be advertised to, because we enjoy finding products that define us as well as goods and services that make us part of a particular club. The brands we are drawn to can become part of the programmes we are attracted to, not in a cynical way but so that integration carries with it a sense of integrity."

We agree.