Disruption has always been key to the advertising model. Very few people opt to be exposed to marketing messages, therefore effective advertising has traditionally intruded into the content the audience has chosen to consume - a TV show, a magazine article, a movie. This enables the advertiser to display images and propositions to pre-engaged eyes and ears. It's a strategy of subterfuge really - smuggling the commercial into popular material to ensure it reaches its target.
For over half a century, this has been accepted as the most efficient advertising delivery method and - watching ITV, Sky, Channel 4 or 5 - it's clear this notion hasn't significantly changed. Unfortunately, audience behaviour has.
We have actually reached the point where advertising is actively loathed, but more importantly, the mechanisms for avoiding the messages have never been more prevalent. In short, disruption has never been harder to achieve.
Take YouTube. The video sharing platform has changed considerably since its inception, largely as a result of being owned by Google. Access a classic pop clip, a funny cat or an excerpt from Dad's Army and, chances are, you'll be greeted with an advertisement before Elton John starts singing or Tibbles does his dance. And there couldn't be a better example of the principle of disruption than this. Except - and this is key - within four seconds of the ad rolling a button appears allowing the viewer to skate past it and into the content for which they've actually come. Quite obviously Google / YouTube realise their platform will die if they don't allow the user this level of control. And suddenly, the roles have reversed, the disruption - so important to the advertiser - is inflicted on the advertisement by the consumer. Quite surprisingly, the clients and agencies don't appear to have realised that a four second ad would play out in full before the 'skip' button appears (I know, a four second ad is a tall order, but that's what creatives are for, right?). Instead, we get a longer cut which we're then invited to skip - and guess what? That's exactly what we do. In fact, I wonder whether anyone has ever NOT used the 'skip' function.
And, everywhere we look, we see advertising disruption failing. Hit with sponsored tweets? Block the sender. Big TV movie spoiled by the ads? Record it and whizz right through them. Now the power rests in the fingers of the audience, the possibility of true disruption is severely limited.
However, there are a few exceptions which may just point the way out of this difficulty. When Steve Coogan and Armando Ianucci released new Alan Partridge work 'Mid-Morning Matters' online, they struck a sponsorship deal with Fosters. But aware that viewers would not welcome a beer ad topping and tailing the episodes (and the potential for that to taint the comedy), the sponsor's branding was prominent on the page surrounding the player - unavoidable, but unobtrusive; disruptive in a way, but without annoyance to the viewer.
There's an obvious lesson here. New media outlets offer exceptional opportunities for advertising campaigns, but advertisers must up their game to take full advantage. Running a trite clip which the viewer can easily dismiss, isn't good enough. If disruption advertising has a future, it's time to make it sharper, cleverer and complementary to the content, rather than a buzzing nuisance. I'm not convinced it's a lesson we're learning quickly enough.
Magnus Shaw is a copywriter, blogger and consultant
