People Want Ads as Intelligent as their Content

People Want Ads as Intelligent as their Content

Andy Marken February 18, 2025

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In situations like this, carelessness, mistakes they will haunt you. I know this from experience. - Walter O'Brien, Scorpion, CBS, 2014- 2018

There's nothing harder to break than a bad habit.

The wife knows she's been trying to change a bunch of ours for years.

She just can't understand that we really like our bad habits.

The same is true for TV networks and bundle providers.

CBS/Fox and Comcast/Spectrum were developed to deliver video entertainment to the home for a fee.

Then:

shareholders wanted a bigger return on their investments

everyone in the content creation pipeline wanted to be paid for their work

bosses wanted more pay because they deserve it

To meet the growing viewer demands and higher costs, they raised their fees. Just a little every now and then who would notice?

Wall Street and bosses needed more so they added ads. Just a few and then a few more and more who would notice? The bundle got too expensive, and it felt like there were more ads than entertainment (20 min/hr.)

Folks dumped their bundles and bought into the Silicon Valley start-up's idea of watching movies/shows anytime they wanted on any screen.

Disruption - Netflix changed the way folks watch shows/movies and consumers liked the convenience just not always the increasing subscription fee.

Studios and networks figured out that going direct to the viewer was a great way to make even more money, so they jumped into the game.

But just in case, they kept their stuff in the cable bundles and theaters.

More, More - Since every network, studio and streamer felt their content was so valuable, they didn't want to share access to others. Consumers have a choice sign up for everyone's stream or be selective. Somehow, we need to get back to bundles that normal people can afford.

Folks couldn't sign up fast enough, even if they didn't have more time to watch the shows/movies. According to PwC, streaming subscription growth is projected to slow its growth from 1.8B last year to 2.1B in 2028.

But average revenue per subscription is projected to barely grow from $65.25 this year to $67.77 in 2028.

Investment - While they are under pressure to be ultra profitable, streamers also have to continually introduce new shows/movies to interest/attract/retain subscribers.

Knowing that it costs money to make money, the networks, studios and streamers kept investing in new content to keep folks from reducing their home entertainment budget by adjusting the services they used.

The home budget got so bad that some people even shifted most of their entertainment time to newer streaming services - Pluto, Tubi, FreeVee, Roku, Kanopy, Plex and others - that figured out that folks would put up with a few ads.

Of course, the viewers wouldn't get any of the new shows/movies any time soon but the price was right free.

Since free was a ridiculous idea for the services that were constantly investing billions in new, breathtaking content and constantly raising their subscription fees was becoming tough when you gained one subscriber but lost two.

It called for a really creative senior management solution reasonable fee plus a few ads.

Okay, so video content advertising isn't a really creative senior management solution. In fact, it's been the go-to mass marketing solution ever since Bulova ran the world's first TV ad back in 1941 during the Dodgers/Phillies game.

Source Bulova

No, it wasn't really spectacular, just the watch face over a US map with voiceover saying, America runs on Bulova time.

Of course, Dunkin' Donuts has recently laid claim to that statement but whatever.

Certainly, it wasn't as spectacular as Apple's famed 1984 hammer toss during the Super Bowl.

It was also a helluva' lot less expensive to make and run.

If you're curious, the Phillies won.

But it did set the stage for a new phase of marketing/advertising. Local/national TV services and marketers around the world couldn't get enough.

It didn't matter if 80-90 percent of the folks weren't interested in what was being promoted, companies were buying numbers.

Since we're not one of those can't tolerate ads people (like two of our video game-hugging friends), choosing ad-supported was an ideal way to realign our streaming budget.

Actually, we didn't do it to save money. As our wife - and kids - will tell you, we're a helluva impulse buyer.

See something that strikes our fancy and BAM! we will probably buy it which is probably best exhibited when we return from the grocery store.

But we sorta missed ads, not the waterboarding ads the cable bundle used to put us through every hour and not the constant repeat of the same ad again and again and

We couldn't tell you who the advertiser was 15 minutes after the ad ran but we could anticipate who was going to say what after a couple of appearances.

Funny how that works.

We rationalized it to our friends noting, Geez guys, it's only 3-4 minutes an hour and they're different because most advertisers no longer have to focus on CPM (cost per thousand) rather than ads that are focused on people with a certain customer profile. Besides, we like a little break during a show.

We also know if we're not buying/paying for the product we're the product.

Source CBS

But with streaming, things are different (or should be) because streamers have a greater understanding of their audience.

There are content folks and the social media you use constantly - Instagram, Tik-Tok, WeChat, YouTube, SnapChat and a bunch of others you can't ignore because of your FOMO (fear of missing out).

But there's a difference.

Back when Netflix started out keeping trac

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