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Essay based on a focus within Mediascape:

The End of Television, As We Know It

Introduction

Firstly I will discuss what ‘advertising’ is. Today the term is used very flippantly by creatives’, but the general definition of ‘advertising’ given is, to ‘make known’ and the object of advertising is primarily to ‘sell’ things. It involves informing potential consumers about products and services via all major mediums such as: press, television, radio, cinema and posters. These are the five main traditional advertising media also known as above-the-line advertising. Advertising also takes form in below-the-line advertising, as sponsorship, catalogues, exhibits, merchandise and sales literature. The defining difference between these two groups is that below-the-line activities do not provide a payable commission, where above-the-line advertising does. Sergio Zyman former chief marketing officer believes advertising is everything:

“Those definitions form only a small portion of what advertising is all about. My definition is that advertising is everything. Yes, it’s those television ads, too. Plus, it’s the way your product is packaged, the spokes people you use - or don’t use - to endorse it, the way you treat your employees and the way they in turn treat your customers, your annual reports, your promotional materials, the articles that get written about you, the events you sponsor, and even the way you handle unexpected business successes and failures. In short, everything you do communicates something about your brand to your customers and prospective customers.”

Joe Cappo currently Professor of Advertising at DePaul University, but who formerly has worked as a journalist, executive and critic, was once invited by a Polish advertising organisation to give a speech in Warsaw on above-the-line advertising, only to help combat against below-the-line advertising. He too did not believe that advertising should be one thing and not another. He did not agree with the nature of this talk and compromised with a title of ‘There is no line’.

“In my opinion, there is no longer a need for any “line” to mark the difference between traditional media advertising and other forms of reaching consumers.”

This essay will discuss how above-the-line and below-the-line advertising is merging, using the development of one of the most influential traditional advertising mediums, Television, as prime example. The important question we will ask is: Will television be sacrificed in order to push advertising into the new realms of digital online advertising?

The Advent of Commercial Television

Baby boomers, a generation born between 1946 and 1964 were a phenomenon resulting from unusually high birth rates after the Second World War. This group of people were the first to be exposed to the medium of television. Commercial television began when a handful of people had a shared interest in introducing advertising on television in order to break the BBC’s monopoly on broadcasting. In 1955 the Commercial Television Act was passed after their success in campaigning their interest in Parliament and on a national scale. The White Paper concluded:

"As television has a great and increasing power in influencing men's minds, the Government believes that its control should not remain in the hands of a single authority, however excellent it may be."

The advent of commercial television began an age of advertising run by pre-war people, restoring their businesses to a pre-war state with great difficulty, unaided and ill-equipped these men had little clue about running an advertising industry. These men looked to the United States of America, the first people to broadcast television commercials, in order to learn from their approach to programme sponsorship. America’s first commercial was broadcast on July 1st 1941 when a company called Bulova Watch paid nine dollars for a twenty second spot to New York City National Broadcasting Company (NBC) affiliate WNBT (now WNBC). This was aired before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. The commercial took the simple form of a watch and a map of the United States with “America runs on Bulova time!” voiced over it. The full-blown style of American commercial sponsorship became the system British television employed and companies that had been initially formed to produce sponsored programmes died out or turned to producing commercials.

Tuned In

During the post-war period, when television was first introduced to Baby boomers’ they watched the same shows, laughed at the same jokes and watched the same news stories on television. Two shows in particular portrayed to viewers’ idealised family lifestyles; ‘Father Knows Best’ (Figure.1) and ‘Leave it to Beaver’.

Figure. 1) “The popular radio show comes to life in this hit sitcom about a wise family man, Jim Anderson, his common-sense wife Margaret and their children Betty, Bud and Kathy. Whenever the kids need advice on anything at all, they can always turn to their father, because father knows best.”

Television would project a visionary lifestyle giving people hope and helping them create some stability in their lives after the war. Later they experienced the same historical scenes together. The assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King. Jr., Robert F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War. The medium of television has consequently become a part of the baby boomer’s cultural identity:

" …the institution that solidified the sense of generational identity more than any other."

This cohort of people has been the target audience throughout the lifetime of all marketers up to today.

Television provides a learned visual literacy even though those people who have become ‘visually literate’ are not particularly ‘literate’. This was something advertisers failed to recognise when commercial television emerged. They concluded illiterate consumers would be unable to understand any message unless it was spelt out to them. This failure to recognise people who watch commercials have become visually literate, former marketing officer Sergio Zyman believes still exists and goes to prove that in reality advertisers are still clueless about advertising. There is a new generation out there that are capable of understanding messages more readily than ever before and who can recognise hints and messages without relying on statements or detailed explanations of a product or service. Consumer’s have become so tuned in the medium of television that they do not have the time for those who don’t recognise they are i.e. advertisers.

There is the opinion that television is seen to only coexist for its advertising, however, the truth is it has only been so successful because it has been the equivalent of all other forms of mass media put together. What the medium does tell us, is that advertising speaks volumes about where television is at in its current state and what it is and can be capable of. Commercials tell us television can be ‘simple, dramatic, intimate, observant, amusing and pathetic’ the same way that they are. Commercials are so powerful in that they can make you feel like you have never felt before, bring back feelings you have not felt for years or it can make you muse over why you never thought of something like that yourself.

The Digital Antichrist

Barry Day, the Creative Director of Mcann-Erikson (1972), believed at the time, over the last twenty years the largest influence on advertising, above all breakthroughs, was not the medium of television in particular and nothing particularly to do with advertising. It was rather the nature in which people watched television and how this affects them. This still applies today. For example, we used to fit our time everyday around the programme schedules set by television networks and now we fit television programmes around our own lifestyles which has now been made possible with devices such as Sky Plus (Sky+) and its American version TiVo. Sky+ is a brand of digital video recorders, it is a device that allows consumers to record television programmes onto a hard disk to view later. It also allows them to fast forward through advertisements and to skip them in recorded programs. The problem is that downloadable television programs using products such as Sky+, help people evade traditional television advertising, meaning that television adverts are reaching less people, and can be easily skipped by people when they are.

“ If there’s an antichrist for advertisers, thy name is TiVo,” says a reporter from Brandweek magazine

It is believed that at this rate technology will eventually eliminate commercials altogether! It is the trends in the way in which we watch television and how it affects us, that influenced the creation of this technology and thus catalysed a new direction in advertising.

Our nature of watching television has fuelled other developments that have reinvented television over the last ten years: multi-channel cable, the advent of High Definition Television (HDTV), technological changes in screen design for example plasma screen technology, the innovation of digital TV systems like Sky+ (mentioned above) and internet convergence.

Dot.com Bubble

The Internet emerged publicly in the nineties’ and by 1995 western nations began to experience an economic bubble:

“a trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance from intrinsic values”

This lasted until 2001 and the period was nicknamed the ‘Dot.com’ boom in reference to the name given to the first online companies. The Dot.com boom was identified by a rapid increase experienced in the value of the western nation stock markets in the new Internet-sector. At the time many of the Dot.com businesses were unsuccessful.

The Internet is now considered to be representative of the “leading edge of technologically enabled consumer control”. We appear to have reached the era of “on-demand”, where inbound channels such as internet and video game systems, rather than outbound channels; print and television, are more commonly viewed by consumers. This has driven advertisers’ to embrace online and interactive as consumer lifestyles have changed and adapted to new technology. It is evident that interactive media is becoming the platform for future of advertising because it allows advertiser’s to escape the confines of the traditional outbound media channels, thus increasing the scope for creativity. Consumers’ now feel in control of their consumption because they choose to be targeted by advertising instead of having it thrown in their direction. Interactive advertising focuses on the pull and not the unattractive push factors traditional media uses and allows the formation of deeper and richer relations with consumers’ than ever before.

Television Changing

Television’s original attraction was that it is: a medium that combines text, audio, sight, motion and is very visual, its also evokes the image of glamour, grabs attention and consumers associate it with quality. This allows for good visual demonstrations of products to be sold and works great as a persuasive medium. In reality the majority of advertising work that has received outstanding recognition over years, has been for television commercials. Television exposes more people to more intensive engagement than the mass medium of the printed word has ever been capable of.

“Its impact is like adding up all the other media there ever were, and the consideration of whether TV should or should not be commercial in a given country is sociologically irrelevant.”

Despite this success a new generation of people who have grown up during the Dot.com boom are increasingly using the Internet as an entertainment medium, this is posing a serious threat to television, to the extent that people are questioning: Is television dead? MTV and Microsoft released new research at the end of last year that youth in Britain spend an average thirty-four hours online per week. This is a demographic of 16 to 24 year olds logging onto the Internet on a daily basis. According to a report from WWP’S graph, advertising online is forecast by 2009 to have eclipsed television spend. It is predicted by the end of 2008 Internet advertising spend will be at 24.8% with television at 26%, leaving only an increase of 6% on Internet advertising spend the following year, to becoming the worlds’ first major economy in our history to pass such a milestone.

Television programs are now being broadcast through new mediums, giving new opportunities for generating the revenue produced by traditional methods of television advertising. Streaming video over the Internet has become increasingly popular particularly after the advent of YouTube, which allows anyone with access to the Internet to upload and broadcast their own video content. Blogs such as MySpace and Facebook now both work in conjunction with youtube so bloggers can post YouTube videos. Channel four this year will be launchingthe latest series of ‘Skins’, a television drama, online. The first episode of the series will be broadcast on their E4 website and additionally on MySpace There are websites now such as 4OD (Figure. 2) and BBC iplayer where you can download temporarily or stream channel programmes for free or pay a subscription for the channels films.

(Figure. 2) “This is 4OD. The best of channel 4, on demand. With hundreds of hours of TV, films and music, you can watch what you want, when you want.”

Also just recently BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, has forged a new partnership with News Corp’s social networking site MySpace which will make clips from popular British shows, including The Mighty Boosh, Robin Hood and Top Gear, available to a worldwide audience online.

Adapting to Change

Volkswagen

The main problem is that the model for traditional above-the-line advertising is still based on push not pull factors; flooding the public with messages. This prevents consumer’s reactions from changing the transmitted message, it only allows the consumer to listen. A good example of an organisation that listens to its consumers is Volkswagen (VW). VW are in conversation with their consumer audience they transmit messages but also listen to their consumer’s response.

After five consecutive years of declining sales in their cars, VW ignited one of the most robust conversations of the year. VW used a shock tactic to pull in an audience. They found unique selling points (USP) for two of their models the VW Passat and Jetta. The USP were as follows: an intelligent crash response system, six standard airbags, anti locking brake system, electronic brake pressurised distribution, lower anchor and tether system, electronic stabilisation program, active seat restraints, crash optimised front end and anti-intrusuion side door beams and a five star front side impact rating. A bit of a mouthful for an advert! The final running advert ‘Safe Happens’ summed up what they wanted to say. The first adverts released were for their VW Jetta model, where they created an advert putting the promises of their car to the test.

(Figure. 3) The storyline of these commercials was based on people chatting in a car, in an everyday conversation, they are driving along and then out of nowhere they are hit by another vehicle. The commercials really reflect the true nature of usually unpredictable car crashes. The people in the VW would step out of the car in shock of what just happened to them, barely hurt. VW closes by saying the highest or four or five star impact rating.

“In television consumers saw crashes in real situations, online they got to have fun in a crash facility crashing the cars they configured into a wall with humpty dumpty, giant lizards, UFOs, and more. The campaign also carried over into print, outdoor, and even some help from consumers who created video mashups out of footage from the TV spots. This message struck a chord with prospective buyers. Sales jumped over 35% percent compared with a year earlier.”

This advert was very controversial and was all over the American news, debating whether this fear factor was appropriate and was it even selling? The answer was yes and VW then responded to their audiences’ reactions when next advertising the VW Passat. The advert involved two women debating the previous VW Jetta commercial driving in a VW Passat and they get hit ad once again step out uninjured. This is the kind of interactivity between the consumer and the brand is what commercial advertising is generally lacking. Note how VW used a combination of traditional and digital media effectively.

Chanel No.5

Today consumers are also a much tougher audience to reach. Present day advertisers are no less creative than their formers, however, consumers have become so well versed in the medium of television that it has become harder to get an emotive response. Receiving reactions such as laughing and crying, cringing, being shocked and nodding in agreement is happening less and less. A lifetime watching a network saturated in advertising has its viewers, to an extent, immunised against its provocative messages. Television as an outlet for advertising is particularly bad where the goal is to get a consumer to act immediately and to make things worse it has become increasingly harder to target specific demographic groups, because irrelevant of how much television is watched they will never see every commercial. There are approximately 40 percent more commercials and promos being broadcast on the television network than ten years previously. Translated into time it is the equivalent of sixteen minutes per hour and cable television approximately eighteen minutes per hour.

Now ninety nine percent of the public do not respond to advertising this is in an age where we are being bombarded with 3,000 advertising messages a day. Advertiser’s response to this figure was to create longer commercials lasting from sixty seconds to two minutes long.

An example of this is the Chanel No.5 Perfume television commercial broadcast in 2004, which at the time was the most expensive commercial to be produced, costing eight million pounds. The brief for this commercial was “ to help us stay where we are” as a brand rather than to sell the perfume. Chanel’s highest ambition was to stay where they were at the top of their market. Other static brands at the same time were BMW, Mercedes and Revlon. The theory is the less advertising the better. So idea behind Chanel’s No’5 perfume commercial was to create an advert with a story and myth behind it. The star was Nicole Kidman (Figure. 3), with a Moulin Rouge-esque, recreated by the same director of the Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann. The commercial ran for two minutes, the objective being to create brand reinforcement and to keep the brand in the forefront on consumers’ imaginations.

(Figure. 4) The commercial shows a two minute story of love and mystery. It is very cinematic and engaging. There is absence of any coherent content and the style overshadows the substance of the commercial. The advert in fact says very little, if not nothing, about the perfume.

(Figure. 5) The location for the commercial is Parisian, such as that in Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Moulin Rouge’ and scenes in the story are reminiscent of iconic scenes from the ‘Moulin Rouge’.

“Costly ads are laden with directing and acting talent now – absorbing a lot of corporate cash. The first thing these adverts imply- and its very good news indeed - is that film has triumphed over television.”

This adverts are being made because we don’t buy things anymore, we buy into associations ‘ you don’t buy a smell, car or drink you buy what they represent.’

The Future of Advertising

Television has significantly changed from its earlier formations as a industry, cultural form and institution. Television remains to be one of the central modes of information but will it continue to do so in the years to come? In order to attain a full understanding of the future of the medium of television we have explored its past and present state in society.

The first and foremost question is why are advertisers’ still holding on so tightly to the medium of television? Advertisers’ keep pushing the boundaries of television commercials with adverts such as the notorious Sony Bravia Balls Commercial by Fallon, where they catapulted 250, 000 bouncy balls down a road in San Francisco and the more recent Cadbury’s gorilla commercial involving a person in a gorilla suit playing the drums creating hype because it had nothing to do with chocolate at all. What is not realised is that the Internet would have and has since spread their message to a larger audience. At the most these commercials will create ‘brand awareness’ for a relatively small audience, like the Chanel No. 5 advert, but they do not sell the product. More and more money is being put into online digital advertising, that it will soon overtake money being put into television advertising. Other new digital technologies such as the iPhone, mean people can easily watch videos and other content online anywhere outside their homes. It is these new mediums, where consumers’ spend most of their time, that advertisers’ need to be using to draw in potential consumers.

Increasingly poor television content and constant advert interruptions are deterring consumers from continuing to watch television. This is leading to preferred television subscriptions online, which also allows for consumers’ to organise television around their lives, watching television episodes on YouTube and downloading films. Wider access to the Internet and wi-fi means that nearly every household owns a computer now and thus has Internet access more readily available than a television. Although television on-demand has not yet become mainstream the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are all currently investing money in the technology to enable their audiences’ to watch their channels online. This is one step away from removing all programmes from the television network and broadcasting them online.

“Lets see more effort to merge program content and advertising into a seamless format,” says Joe Cappo.
Something must be done to filter out TV ad clutter . Advertisers are now looking at scrapping television commercials and investing in product placement in films. However, is a new generation of commercial free commercial television the answer? It may be regarded by television viewers as ‘unethical’ to have subliminal advertising messages broadcast. Advertisers’ are very excited about this as it provides them with a new challenge, but appears they are clinging onto the medium by throwing money at the problem rather than solving it. The ‘idiotic belief’ remains that commercials are all there is to advertising, Sergio Zyman believes.

Burger King

A very recent example shows how stubborn advertisers’ still are. Burger King released the ‘Whopper Viral Video’ (Figure. 6) on the Internet answering the question: ‘How would you react if your favourite burger was discontinued?’

(Figure. 6)
“The video was filmed in secret at a Burger King store in America where burger lovers were told that the Whopper has been discontinued, the reactions range from the sudden need to share childhood memories to freezing on the spot and having a mini nervous breakdown. The happy ending comes when the victims are told it was all a joke and we can see their faces light up as the Burger King corporate mascot walks in.”

This viral was broadcast online only and was very successful. It was passed on by word of mouth and mailed out between friends and created a huge hype around the Burger King Whopper burger everywhere. The real life footage alone demonstrating how the world would cope without it showed how imminent it is the burger exists.

The great advantage of interactive communication like this is that it is much more memorable than any exposure to a passive mediums. Interaction seems to be the answer to overturning consumer cynicism. Advertisers’ failed to see the Whopper Virals’ success and went on to broadcast the footage through the television network, which perhaps informed the rest and very few people who were not on the Internet and so the message had not reached them. Advertisers’ have still not woken up to fact that they do not need television to sell products or create brand awareness.

To Conclude

To conclude I will return to the initial question: Will television be sacrificed in order to push advertising into the new realms of digital online advertising? My answer is, that it has become evident that developments in technology are consumer driven. Changes in consumer lifestyles spur on new technological developments and this technology is responsible for the changes we are seeing in television as we know it.

“The 30-second spot- at least as it exists today- is either dead, dying or has outlived its usefulness. Take your pick,” says creative director Joseph Jaffe.

The advent of the Internet, blogs such as My Space and Facebook, on-demand television such as 4OD and BBC iplayer, personal video broadcasts on YouTube, access to the internet via wi-fi and the new iphone which allows you to connect to the internet more readily than with a portable laptop. The Internet has become a huge porthole for information and entertainment with interactive engaging qualities, where television has become too passive a medium. I see new digital media as a way of intercepting all advertising mediums using technology. I think once above-the-line and below-the-line are allowed to gel, there will be a transition from the old box to a new one and we should let television as we know it rest in peace. If we return to the quote by Sergio Zyman at the beginning of this essay he says ‘My definition is that advertising is everything’ and advertising should be everything not just commercial television.