CBS is launching a web/TV game this autumn that requires players to monitor programs and commercials to win up to $2 million in prizes. The network has taken this on as part of the challenge of getting viewers to watch ads in an era of PVRs with commercial-skipping capability. ABC has done something similar during the commercials for Lost.
It's great to see the networks applying some creativity to the problem of surviving technological change — it's a welcome switch from their tactic to date, which is whining in court about the big bad PVR makers who naughtily allow viewers to control what's on their own TVs.
NBC's popular sitcom "The Office," for example, put together fake public-service announcements that mimic NBC's own "The More You Know," a series of PSAs featuring actors, writers and directors delivering the messages. Because "The Office" PSAs so closely resembled actual PSAs, viewers did not realize they were fake until the announcement series took a bizarre, humorous turn. The fake PSAs also can be viewed for free on "The Office" Web site. An ad streams silently next to the video while you watch it.
In this case, an advertiser who places a spot next to the online version of the PSA can claim at least one advantage over the advertisers flanking the same PSA on television. Thanks to online tracking software, it's relatively easy to obtain demographic information on the viewers who click on the online PSA video, while the television advertisers flanking the same PSA during a commercial break have much less precise information about who was reached. The ANA/Forrester report found that 97 percent of advertisers wanted better measurement of audience viewership for actual commercials, not just a TV program ratings system.
