Breakvertising is the future

While digicoders are killing the scope of TV advertising, breakvertising can prove to be the new way for advertisers to gain viewers goodwill

It is a known fact that technology has come in handy whenever there was a need to trigger. A revolution in the way advertisements were made and conceived; be it in terms of graphic designing in print ads to breathtaking editing techniques in TV commercials. But has technology just been a boon for advertising? We can’t say that.

A recent development in TV viewing technology comes with a feature of simply fast-forwarding commercials. Although, the small digital box is profoundly changing our viewing behaviour today, delayed viewing through the digicoder has an adverse effect- on advertisers.

Besides being a blessing for the conventional viewer, it may prove to be a curse to the advertiser and budding brands. With all this leading to the TV industrial complex, advertisers and TV channels had to look for a new way of persuading consumers and they needed to do it fast, before they lost all the potential consumers.

As they say ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’, Belgium communication agency ‘These Days’ formulated a non-disturbing method to regain viewers’ goodwill and named it “Breakvertising”. The key idea behind breakvertising was looking for untapped potential. The technology behind breakvertising is simple pause button advertising; whenever the viewer presses the button, an image flashes on screen.

Breakvertising can prove to be a boon for advertisers if the latter looks at this simple technology the right way. Speaking about breakvertising, These Days’ art director and co-author of the concept Gertian De Smet says, “We were looking for a fun and non-disturbing way to make the optimum use of the moments when viewers pause the programme.

They meddle with the programme flow to either answer calls or go to bathroom or to get something to eat. If one observes, they will notice that all these moments involve a product or service. This is the reason we thought it would be a great idea to give advertisers the opportunity to use the specific moment and interact with the viewer.”

Viewer decides the fate:

No doubt breakvertising is a brilliant concept; but the biggest loophole is that it is limited to a still image- contrary to classic commercial break. While it may grab the viewers attention quickly, it is fundamentally still a frozen frame on the screen. Also, the consumer has the power to disable a specific message if he feels it’s disturbing or boring; so the scope of interruption marketing is also questionable. Quite evidently the success of breakvertising lies on the consumer response

These Days’ client Telenet and SBS have taken the initiative to flesh out the idea to the world by developing the concept technically and using commercial associates to ground the idea to advertisers. The concept is still in its trial phase and is scheduled to probably be made available to every TV channel, telecom service provider and distributor by yearend.

By:Tushar Kalawatia