Better shape up

Sky+ is a hard drive set-top box linked to the Sky EPG that records at least 20 hours of television. No more fiddling with ridiculous video recorders, where you can barely set the clock, let alone record a show, no more sticky videos that play back as much snow as picture, no more of the kids taping another rerun of Friends over the next episode of Deadwood. The sense of televisual liberation in the Docherty household has been palpable since Mr Murdoch’s nice men installed the Box.

And we are not alone. The Box is now in around half a million homes in the country. They are being ordered as fast they can be made and there is a waiting list to install.

A few things mark out we, Sky Plusers. One, we time-shift most of our drama and entertainment, reserving our live viewing for news, sport and event shows like I’m a Celebrity...! Second, we don’t watch ads on recorded content. Or, more precisely, we zip through the ads as fast as the technology allows us to. After all, that’s what the fast-forward button is for.

All of which poses a serious problem for the television business. Not just the advertising business - the whole shooting match. The industry is already under enormous pressure from audience fragmentation, as a result of the rise in multichannel take-up, which is forcing advertisers to rethink what they are up to.

So what’s a poor brand manager to do? The answer is both strategic and tactical. At a strategic level, the question is - what is television for? Most of us still watch it for more than 20 hours a week, so it is obviously still the mass market to end all mass markets. But it is morphing, and those who successfully exploit its power to engage and entertain must shape-shift, or they’ll up shapeless.

Television will still retain its power to drive a brand into public consciousness, but the advertising premium may flow to shows that can prove they have a reasonable chance of keeping buttocks on sofas either side of the break. That would work for the few minutes before and after a major sporting event, or during major live “event” shows such as Celebrity, but not necessarily for built drama. But the big issue is not just the effectiveness of live versus recorded advertising, it is that brands have to become interactive and community-focused if they are to maintain their presence.

In the Sky+ era, brands will have to engage with the tribal nature of what is happening online to establish long-term relationships with the new media consumer. The idea that the internet and interactive consumer is the ultimate in isolated individualism is just plain wrong. The web was built as a communication device, and through blogs, peer-to-peer services and self-organising communities which shift content to one another, it is showing how effective advertising content needs to develop community tools such as chat and simple syndication tools to maintain reach and share.

Ads will become opt-in, for consumers, rather than opt-out. If I have the ability to fast-forward a brand out of my consciousness, the brand must persuade me to identify myself with the kind of person who watches a piece of entertainment paid for by the people selling my particular products and services. Product placement and sponsorship will not be enough.

Brand managers are going to have to work hard to give us stuff - games, prizes, content - to stop us zipping right on past their precious and expensively assembled 30-second slots. Our viewing time is precious. You want us? You pay us or entertain us or interact with us. The couch potato fights back.

Read the article: www.ft.com