Skips Ahoy! Networks’ New Anti-Ad-Skipping Tactics

While skipping through commercials during the two-hour season finale of ABC’s Lost on Sunday (thanks, DVR), I realized that a certain commercial would trick me into pressing the play button too early. The commercial was for Traveler, a new ABC primetime show with dark lighting and a luminous white/blue logo. The effect tricked my eye. I thought I was stopping at Lost.

This particular juxtaposition might not have been on purpose, but I can see the potential for undermining DVR ad-skipping with evocative lookalike spots. Just try and DVR skip through commericals on the Sci-Fi channel. Every single ad looks like the show you’re watching. So it’s safe to conclude that if advertisers want to undermine DVR ad skipping, they can simply copy the setting, lighting or effects of the program you’re advertising against.

Nefarious? Sure. Obnoxious? You betcha. Effective? Unfortunately yes.

“We all need to become more creative in how we incorporate sponsors into a program,” said Ed Swindler, executive vice president for NBC Universal ad sales tells the Associated Press. “No one on the creative side or the business side wants to make commercials intrusive, but we do need to commercialize efficiently so viewers can afford to get free television.”

Thus the bevy of anti-ad-skipping experiments afoot:

• CW’s content wraps, in which the commercial is an interview with a star of the show you’re currently watching. Also: “Cwickies,” a series of five-second ads that lead up to a longer ad at the end of a program.
• DirectTV’s fake movies, in which a commercial begins with footage from Back to the Future and ends with a product pitch from one of the stars (embedded above).
• CourtTV’s interactive mystery, in which clues are interspersed throughout commercials.
• Tivo’s end program ads, which appear when you’ve finished watching a show.

See where we’re going? No more ads, just constant content disguised as ads. Or is it constant ads disguised as content. Doesn’t matter. Either way, it’s not the technology that’s important — it’s making the commercials entertaining so that they add value instead of subtracting it.