Ad agencies, CMOs and industry pundits have been predicting the death of TV commercials since the first TiVo left the warehouse in 1999. But claiming that the DVR prevents advertisers from reaching consumers is like saying that the couch prevents the vacuum from reaching the rug: in both instances, overcoming the obstacle merely requires a little effort. And just as there are homeowners who are too lazy to move the couch, there are advertisers and agencies unwilling to put in the extra work necessary to avert the fast-forward button. They find it easier to point the finger at the DVR than take responsibility for having created commercials that deserve to be skipped over. But the real enemy isn’t the DVR; the real enemy is advertising that’s easy to ignore. The DVR is simply Darwinism for the digital age: a force that will, in time, lead to the extinction of weak commercials and leave only the strong contenders to compete for our attention.       

For the record, our agency was creating online ad campaigns and Web sites years before we produced our first TV spot. So I’m content to see interactive become the dominant marketing medium moving forward. My only interest in positing that TV advertising’s best years still lie ahead is to save the ad industry from unnecessarily embarrassing itself more than it already has. Because we should all be embarrassed by the decades of unpalatable commercials agencies have served up and expected viewers to consume simply because they had no choice. From Glade Plug-ins (“Freshens 50 days, freshens in a new way, plug it in, plug it in”) to Kraft Cheese Crumbles (“You’re crumb-believable”) to Bagel Bites (“When pizza’s on a bagel, you can have pizza any time”), advertising agencies have conditioned consumers to avoid watching commercials. And now that people have the choice to do so, the universal response has been to eulogize the 30-second spot and pronounce new, even more invasive techniques like product placement and in-show ad units as broadcast advertising’s saviors. While contaminating the content consumers tune-in to watch is one potential approach to winning back their affection, I’d like to propose another.

For one day every year, Super Bowl Sunday, people gather around their televisions and watch commercials with as much interest—or more, depending on who’s playing—as the programming itself. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that it’s the one day of the year that advertisers demand commercials that are worthy of such curiosity.

There’s a preponderance of evidence that people are willing to watch good commercials: from hour-long network specials dedicated to the best spots from around the world, to the dozens of commercials on YouTube that have been voluntarily viewed more than a million times each. The TV sitcom Cavemen clearly establishes that there was demand for what the Martin Agency was producing on behalf of Geico (although a half-hour show might have been overdoing it). Wieden’s fantastic “The LeBrons” campaign featuring LeBron James in several multi-generational roles within the same family; the brilliantly written and executed Mac versus PC spots; Fallon’s stunning work for Sony Bravia—consumers don’t want to avoid these ads, they want to see more of them.

We owe consumers an apology for treating them so disrespectfully over the past several decades. As some have suggested, we can tuck our tail between our legs and start creating 5-second spots with the invisible caption “sorry to bother you, we’ll make this quick,” or we can treat every commercial break as if it were Super Bowl Sunday. 

In 2006, many of the Super Bowl spots weren’t even made specifically for the occasion. Coca-Cola, for example, ran three spots they already had in the can (no pun intended). They just happened to be Super Bowl-quality ads. I had seen Coke’s computer-animated take on Grand Theft Auto in a movie theater weeks before it aired during the big game, yet still found it one of the most enjoyable spots of the day. It’s further evidence that good work can be produced all year long.

But despite the examples cited thus far, I also believe there’s an opportunity to significantly reduce production costs. After all, production value has never been, and will never be, a substitute for creativity. We recently completed a half-dozen spots for our client El Toro Tequila—and while the total production came in at $12.78 (the cost of mini-marshmallows, cocktail wieners and gummi worms at the super market across the street from our office) including music (whistling provided by the copywriter on the campaign), I don’t think we could have achieved a better result with a million dollars and a big-time production company. It’s completely reasonable for clients to expect their agency to out-think the competition rather than outspend them.

My only fear is that the DVR may perpetuate the behavior for which many agencies also owe their clients an apology: creating ads that are more memorable than the advertiser. Entertaining people is hard. Accomplishing a business objective at the same time is significantly more difficult. That’s what separates advertising professionals from the entertainment industry and the legions of Internet amateurs. At least it should be.

I imagine a time in the near future when, out of necessity, every spot will be as good or better than what we currently get just once a year. And we’ll all have the DVR to thank.

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