CANNES – Reducing the commercial load in television programming is “a heavy topic,” says the chief investment officer at global media agency OMD, and while he welcomes experimentation he wonders whether people will even notice.
“There’s a lot of discussion here about having one fewer pod in an hour-long show,” Ben Winkler says in an interview with Beet.TV during the Cannes Lions creative festival. “I’d be curious to see if a person watching that show, if they’re even aware of that. Are they more likely to watch that show? Are they more likely to watch shows on that network?”
To Winkler, consumer choice “is really about consumer power and consumer power is a very good thing.” He says that while it’s a challenge, “it’s more of an opportunity because it forces us to do better work. When there’s no consumer choice, advertisers and agencies can be lazy.”
For Winkler, the best way to improve the viewer advertising experience is to more selective of what ads to show. “The only way to do that is to take information that we know about people and deliver them a better ad experience. That’s the expectation,” Winkler says.
“Lowering the ad load is a heavy topic,” he continues. “I’m glad that we’re testing it out. I think the concept that more concept and fewer ads is probably a better user experience. The question is how much better a user experience is that and will that change the way that people actually watch TV.”
This video was produced at Cannes Lions as part of our Future of TV Advertising Leadership Forum, presented by true[X] and hosted by OMD. Please visit this page for additional segments from the event.
This video was produced at the OMD Oasis at Cannes Lions 2016 as part of the Future of TV Advertising Leadership Forum, a series presented by true[X] and hosted by OMD Worldwide. Please visit this page for additional segments.
