Week in Review: CBS Mulls Over An Ad-Free CBS All Access; Facebook Is Forcing People To Watch Ads

CBS Mulls Over An Ad-Free CBS All AccessCBS announced that they were seriously considering offering an ad-free subscription plan for their CBS All-Access service, which currently has ads and costs $6/month. Why It MattersCBS may be feeling the heat from Hulu, which also offers an ad-free version for $4 more than it’s ad supported version. That this model is not more successful than it is has often vexed us, as, to our way of thinking, if you’re already paying $8 for Hulu, an extra $4/month seems like a small price to pay to avoid ads completely. It may be that not everyone shares our dislike of interruptive advertising, or that Hulu is an infrequent enough choice for most people that $4 does seem like a lot of money.But back to CBS—we have been predicting for a while that we may well see a shift to a two-tiered system of consumption, where people who can afford it pay to avoid seeing ads on their favorite platforms/networks. (Kind of like the second episode of “Black Mirror.”) This is a scenario that gives network ad salespeople nightmares, but there’s a growing realization that the current system, where interruptive advertising breaks the narrative flow every ten minutes, is not ideal, and that when people are paying for channels a la carte, they’re going to want an ad-free option. What You Need To Do About ItDevelopments like this should be a wake-up call for brands and agencies to start thinking about branded content, which can run on ad-free subscription networks without annoying the bejesus out of consumers.If you’re a network, pay attention to what CBS does and how it’s received. Do consumers feel CBS’s content is worth paying extra money to avoid commercials? Or do only a small percentage take advantage of the offer?We’re thinking that the number of die-hard CBS fans who’ll pay extra to avoid commercials will be around 20-25% of the total subscriber base, a number we’ll revisit if and when the service actually comes to fruition.  Facebook Is Forcing People To Watch AdsDo you have ad blocker on your web browser? Well, Facebook is not happy about that, and they’re promising to put a stop to it, changing up the tech on their platform so that ads are not easily detected by ad blockers. Why That Matters This is quite the conundrum for the industry: ad blockers cost the industry billions in lost revenue, but if you’re an advertiser, do you really want your ads to be seen by people who were actively looking to avoid them and are going to be annoyed by them?It’s not an easy call, though it is a good argument for branded content. In Facebook’s case, we’re not sure why they don’t double down on dark posts and similar native advertising anyway, In our experience, their display ad targeting is always way off (similar to the “Suggested Groups” feature Facebook doesn’t let you get rid of, the one that consistently suggests you join the Reunion Committee group for a high school on the other side of the country that two of your college friends happen to go to.)So there’s that.Facebook’s display ads also tends to feature some really shady organizations or things that look like spam, e.g. “Meet Christian Singles In Your Area!” “Bedbugs Be Gone!” and the like. That makes Facebook look cheap and cheesy, and if they are serious about being a video destination, then they really should consider ditching or revamping their desktop display ads What You Need To Do About It Stop running display ads on Facebook. If most of the people you want to reach are having their ad blockers blocked, they are not going to want to see your ad. And when they do see it, they will blame you for polluting their Facebook page. So our advice is to stick to dark posts, Live video and other native techniques. Leave display to the bottom feeders.  

TV[R]EV is written, curated and incubated by the BRaVe Ventures team. Find TV[R]EV on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for the newsletter to stay up to date on the TV[R]EVOLUTION.