FreeThink - Official FreeWheel Blog

This week we presented at the IAB Innovation Days event titled "The Future of TV and Online Video."  The future!  There it is, right in the title, setting the stage for all kinds of guidance on how to move business tomorrow and thoughtful points of view on what's coming next.  And, yet, I found myself struck by how many of the conversations were grounded in concepts from the past.  Television experts are still talking GRPs and :30 spots, digital gurus clinging to click-through rates and engagement metrics, agencies debating whether it will be the TV buyer or the digital planner who will ultimately own multi-screen video strategy.  In a time of such incredible change and innovation, where is the new thinking on how to manage it? 

One panel devoted itself to debating whether the :30 spot still reigns, is it still viable, or should be retired.  Yes, and yes, and no!  But what else?  Let's talk about how the savvy media companies are combining the :30 with other formats of advertising to support video - :15, overlays, companion ads, product placement.  Kudos to Suzie Reider, Head of Ad Sales, YouTube & Google Display, who made that point and was met with blank stares.  Let's discuss the relationship between the duration of the video being watched and the proportional advertising support - the :30 may not belong in a short-form video world, but overlays and :15 post-rolls sure do.

Based on some of the Twitter chatter, one of the more thought-provoking assertions came from Lisa Valentino, VP of digital and mobile ad sales at ESPN.  She noted that in the new world of "time shifted" content, that live events are perhaps the only remaining semblance of "appointment TV."  She went further to say, "Live is the new prime."  Given that, ESPN has been innovating at warp speed to deliver the FIFA World Cup live, across all screens, all languages, all 32 countries.  You want to watch World Cup from your iPad, your Droid, your desk, your couch - it's live and ad-supported on ESPN.  Now that's forward thinking!

What if everyone in a place to lead thinking, to provoke discussion, to spawn innovation committed to taking what we need from the past and then focusing full-board on the future?  We'll go first.

— JoAnna Abel - VP, Marketing