Are Streamers and Soaps a Winning Combination for Advertisers?

I never had an issue with commercial breaks in broadcast programs maybe because I grew up with them or maybe because they were often as engaging as much of the content they were inserted into But like most people over the years I came to accept and embrace the many advances in technology that seemed to be designed to compromise the advertising business From remote controls that encourage channel surfing to paycable VCRs DVRs and streaming it has since the 3980s become increasingly easy to avoid commercial breaksI39m watching ads anew because of a sequence of events that have brought them back into my life in a way I didn39t see coming The credit goes to smart decisionmaking at Peacock and a questionable decision by NBC which about one year ago stopped airing Days of our Lives the last soap opera on its once dynamic daytime schedule In the New York market NBC replaced Days which it had telecast since 1965 with dated reruns of Dateline NBCPeacock picked up Days for one year Then it renewed the show for two moreSince the early years of this millennium I have marveled at the ongoing maneuvers of broadcast executives to marginalize and then terminate daily daytime dramas often noting that they represented the only program format that remained exclusive to their medium while cable and streaming continued to produce competitive and often superior comedy drama news and sports programming But once Days migrated to Peacock that was no longer true Now it pains me to note that there is nothing broadcast television can call its ownI feared the worst when Days moved because we are creatures of habit and watching daily soap operas on broadcast television where they began as highly profitable platforms to effectively sell household products is as habitual as TV watching gets Personally I thought I would lose touch with it as I usually had it on in my home office while working I mean during a busy day seeking out a show on a streaming platform and then watching it takes a bit more thought and effort than just leaving one39s TV on and letting it do all the work And because my Peacock plan includes ads which I never focused on while watching the show on NBC I thought that would ultimately kill my enthusiasmI was wrong on both countsAdmittedly I don39t necessarily watch every episode of Days on Peacock amp8230 but I didn39t see them all on NBC either I do however watch often enough to keep up with the drama of it all Bo is alive Victor is dead Vivian is back And when I watch it I watch the commercials too This is not as torturous as it sounds Commercial breaks during Days are generally one minute or less and there are some bluechip advertisers in the mix I remember a time when ads on streamers were cheap cheesy repetitive and painful to sit through I39m not sure if its random circumstance or the result of smart people communicating the need for improvements but the commercials during Days largely hold my attention Sometimes I don39t even scroll through Instagram while they are onIn addition I find myself engaged by Peacock39s Pause Ads those stillimage ads that appear on screen when one pauses a program to do the things we used to do during broadcast commercial breaks like raiding the refrigerator using the bathroom or these days tending to an quoturgentquot matter on one39s phone I sometimes pause the show simply to see what ad will pop up Some like those pictured on this page including TMobile TRESemme Raymour ampamp Flanigan and xfinity wisely play with the fact that they can be looked at and processed like those in magazines They don39t fly by nor do they annoy or bore viewers who may not appreciate them On the interactive front they are custom made for folks who can39t resist QR codesAnd so it is that one of the oldest forms of television entertainment is being used on a relatively new platform to revitalize and refresh advertising the very industry that supported the medium from its very beginning Further my understanding is that Days of our Lives has done well on Peacock certainly well enough to warrant a renewal and is bringing new subscribers to the serviceNow it39s up to the creative team at Days to keep them comingI39d like to see the show loosen up and become a bit more adult in its storytelling after all it is no longer restricted by broadcast standards and I doubt advertisers would complain given what they are up against on various forms of digital media And I39d like to think that if the day ever comes when CBS and ABC decide that they would be better served by reruns of old news programs than by contemporary soap operas on their daytime schedules that their parent companies will be smart enough to move them over to their respective streaming platforms and follow the Peacock modelAbove all else I39d like to see the advertising community take further advantage of the creative opportunities that streaming platforms are making possible and perhaps find ways to transfer what they are learning and doing over to their broadcast partnersPosted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Are Streamers and Soaps a Winning Combination for Advertisers?

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Ed Martin

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Are Streamers and Soaps a Winning Combination for Advertisers?

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