Chopping TV Ad Time Offers New Opportunity For Brands

Luis Vargas

With the ever-growing reliance on digital media, driven by the developing transition to more mobile and social media consumption, television has begun to re-evaluate its role amongst this threat of diverted attention. Hoping to keep eyes glued to the tube, network television is reformatting the way advertising is done by adjusting their ad load. But as spots get shifted from their traditional layout, what kind of opportunities will be rising for advertisers when creating new content?

As consumption of entertainment has changed over the last few years, network executives have reconsidered the expected scheduling of advertisements for their programming. Citing super-saturation of advertisements and decreased effectiveness, networks like truTV are paving the way for the future of advertising by reducing overall ad time by an average of 9 minutes per hour. TNT and National Geographic followed suit by expanding the time allotment for new programs and reducing ad time by nearly 50%, with Nat Geo going as far as showing ad free documentaries. When rivaling streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime that offer content with little interruptions, executives have reacted to the realization that the audience experience has to be bettered to keep ratings strong and their channels valuable.

Some expected responses to this advertising fatigue have continued to take place, like ‘Empire’’s Pepsi product placement and the ‘24’ reboot’s bookend ads that serve to disrupt the audience less with their positioning, but others are taking less traditional paths. Viceland, a channel in association with A+E that premiered this past February, has also reduced its ad load by nearly half, but as well has integrated advertisements to by stylized in a similar manner to their network brand, disguising the spots as ‘editorial content’ to some degree. Partnerships with brands like Samsung to produce native ads blur in the distinction of content and may just maintain the attention of their audience.

However, with this transition to more native, stylized advertising and shorter ad buys, we may see a more drastic adjustment in the way ads are made for TV. Smaller blocks of time give advertisers the opportunity to build stronger narratives for their brands. By either in the form of filling a single commercial break, which is much more feasible with fewer allotments, or weaving a sub-narrative alongside the program content, the advertising industry could find a way to shake up the expected. And with the support of a network like Viceland to make advertisements to fit the tone of the larger channel they find their messages on, who knows how far the line between commercial and content will obscure.