Convergence Between Online & Broadcast
The worlds of online and broadcast are colliding and reconfiguring themselves at a dramatic rate. A decade ago who would have believed the impact that online video would have on TV advertising, and yet the moment is here.
With traditional ad agencies clinging to their high rolling clients for dear life and praying they are not caught out by the new video production houses, with their lower overheads and experience of cutting their teeth on Internet video, convergence between content produced for multiple platforms makes more sense than ever.
As Campaign’s Ian Darby writes, “fast, cheap, high-quality film production combined with audience scale available through free-to-access digital media channels provides an alternative to the big-budget, studio system offered by agencies.”
Expect the barriers to erode quickly between the TV and online creatives as businesses get budgets to stretch to cover the ever expanding demands of digital.
Some predict a dip in the quality of the work produced by convergence agencies as they get to grips with producing for multiple platforms, but before long they’ll have the bit between the teeth, and like Mendip Media will be offering hard-to-turn-down packages of high quality annual online video content, including VOD, alongside TV ads.
And at rates that would make a hardened ad man weep.
Although TV media buying seems to be holding up, the Internet is chipping away at TV spend, which will eventually force down prices. It’s an exciting time to be involved in what is really a new industry model of producing time-honoured creative video content for a newly democratised market.