Similar trends are taking hold worldwide. To combat shrinking viewership, marketers are funneling growing amounts of money into nontraditional advertising, like “advertainments” and product placement. Simon Sherwood, chief operating executive for media agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) in London, says 5 percent of the firm’s $900 million in global billings now comes from nontraditional ads, and predicts that share will rise to 20 percent in the next few years. Others think the shift may come even faster. Says Maurice Levy, CEO and chairman of the Paris-based media giant Publicis Groupe, “We will see a sea change in how we distribute media investment in the next five years.”
One alternative to the 30-second spot is to blindside consumers with more quick-hit advertising. On average, a Westerner now gets more than 3,000 marketing messages each day, up from 100 messages a day in 1984. E-mail spam, text messages, Internet pop-up ads–even the dollar bill has become an advertisement: one U.S. marketer recently circulated 50,000 real $1 bills in New York and Los Angeles with stickers advertising a network mini-series. Product placement–like putting Coca-Cola cups in the hands of “American Idol” judges–has jumped in popularity. Product-placement agencies now number more than 500 in the United States, up from only a handful 20 years ago.
Advertisers are also going in the opposite direction, competing with the entertainment industry to hold consumers’ attention for 30 to 60 minutes at a time. Major holding companies are increasingly adding entertainment consultants and PR powerhouses to their portfolios: Omnicom Group has purchased entertainment consultancy Davie Brown, and Publicis recently said it is exploring the Hollywood entertainment-marketing sphere. “Branded entertainment” is the new buzzword for sponsored programs. BMW set the new industry standard in its film shorts, with stars like Madonna and Pierce Brosnan behind the wheel and director Ang Lee behind the camera. The ads drew more than 13 million consumers to BMW’s Web site in 2002.
Others are following. This season in the United States, Southwest Airlines launched a new reality-TV show, “Airline,” which follows the low-cost carrier’s staff. Last year the French water company Evian produced a platinum CD single and an award-winning music video of a song in its popular commercial, in which adults with children’s voices sang Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” The Evian logo was nowhere to be seen. Instead a small cartoon figure called Water Boy bounced around the video (aired on MTV Europe and MTV Asia) to the music from Evian’s commercial. Consumers got the message: Evian sales jumped 12 percent in Belgium and 4 percent in France. Analysts say this kind of subtle brand association appeals to the modern, skeptical consumer. “We have had to reinvent ways of communicating with people,” says Remi Babinet, the creative director at Euro RSCG Worldwide, who created Water Boy. “Advertising has become so complicated. We realized we need to give a gift to the people.”
Advertisers are also starting to tap the technology that most threatens the 30-second spot. Forrester Research estimates that in coming years $7 billion will be lost in total TV ad revenues because of PVRs and VOD, replaced by $4.6 billion in VOD advertising by 2007. Sponsored features like behind-the-scenes interviews with the stars will be included with the movies and other programs available on demand. The idea is to engage the consumer more fully in a less obviously commercial advertainment: for example, an ad from the British homeless charity Depaul Trust, which aired on VOD during a British drama, allows the viewer to direct the story line of the ad to one of four endings.
These new ad forms are experiments for most advertisers, and many say the 30-second spot is evolving, not dying. But there is no doubt they are the future. Alec Gerster, CEO of Initiative Media Worldwide, estimates that while nontraditional ads account for 5 to 10 percent of the industry business, they are “getting 80 to 90 percent of the focus.” And in the ad business, buzz is destiny.
