The Future of Advertising is Not Coming After the Break – Walter Sabo

Brand CEOs often make bold speeches about the need for ad agencies to find new approaches for delivering messages to their consumers. Then it never happens. The reason it never happens is that the entire ad agency economic model is built on the agency creating and buying spots. As long as the 30-second spot is the gold standard for ad agency profits, not much will change.

Digital spots are called banners, pre-rolls, pop ups and other nuisances that the public does not want. This delivery method fits nicely within the 30-second TV spot model and is manageable for an agency. Often the TV :30 is the online :30 so it is appealingly efficient.

But none of these approaches is going to continue to work at moving product as brands demand ROI proof for new advertising tactics. It's been a long time since they applied ROI strict standards to TV spots.
They know what happens to online banners -- a point 2 click through rate. Pop ups and pre-rolls give viewers a heads up on when they can make it stop. ("Click here to make this ad stop in 4 ... 3 … 2 seconds …")

Radio continues to offer spots in long commercial breaks, often 8 or more at a time. Cable networks are worse; some of their commercial clusters have 15 units in one cluster. The middle zone of cluster spots has been proven to be far less effective and therefore have less value than the first and last spots. All of them are skipped by viewers when watching shows on DVRs.

The future of advertising cannot be spots! The viewer/listener is obviously skipping/ignoring present advertising techniques and getting back to the show. Brand messages have to be placed within the show.

Online video web stars are performers who post videos on sites like Vimeo and Metacafe. Their videos consistently garner about 1 million views. Our company Hitviews was the first to place brands and messages within those videos as covered here by Jack Myers. I'm not talking pop-ups and pre-rolls but brands as part of the show, or ItS – In the Show.

One of the important discoveries about ItS advertising is that the viewers like it. They appreciate that a
brand supports one of their favorite online stars.


Many brands have become part of the show on TV such as Snapple on NBC's "America's Got Talent." But it's not just the cup on the table. Snapple sponsors contests and promotions and is an integral part of the show: A positive part of the show flow, not an interruption.

In the future, TV and radio stations will have no spots.

As revenue flows into ItS, spot revenue will decline. A premium will be placed on In the Show slots. Ultimately, TV and radio will earn more from ItS than from spots because they will be more effective, they cannot be skipped and they are part of the entertainment quotient.

For example, NBC's "Hollywood Game Night" features ItS advertising that is active and seamless. Sometimes actual products are the answers to quiz questions.

The challenge for radio is that product placement needs to demonstrate proof of broadcast and invoicing. On TV and in film, there is optical software that identifies when the product is on screen, for how long and
how much of the product is shown (full label, half label, etc.). Radio needs voice recognition software that will "hear" every time a product is mentioned and then generate an automatic invoice. (Yes, Sabo Media is working on that.)

The public has already entered the future of advertising. They skip the spot cluster on TV and punch the button on the radio. In the Show advertising is the future that works.

Walter Sabo is the Chairman of Sabo Media, a company that offers executive-on-demand services. He has worked on-site to build out new digital content platforms such as Sirius/XM. His team was the first to discover the marketing clout of web stars, Internet organic video producers. They founded OMMA award winning HITVIEWS. The company placed brands such as CBS, TiVo and Mountain Dew inside UGC. In FM broadcasting he is a leader in the profitable sector of FM Talk and held executive positions at NBC and ABC Radio. He can be reached at walter@sabomedia.com.

Read all Walter's MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Sabo Strategies.

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