Entry Details

About the Entry

Category: 
All Content > Thought Leadership > Northeast

Title of entry: 
A Passionate Plea To The Ad Tech Industry For Moderation

Issue or Publication date:
March 20

Publication name: 
AdExchanger

View Website home page:
https://adexchanger.com/

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https://www.adexchanger.com/on-tv-and-video/the-viral-cerveza-cristal-ads-were-funny-but-theyre-also-a-cautionary-tale-for-ctv-advertising-ambitions/

Entry Essay: 
AdExchanger publishes a lot of important, compelling thought leadership sourced from the top minds in the digital media and marketing industry. But our own editors also have strong points of view on the issues we cover objectively in our pages.

In 2019, AdExchanger started to experiment with running staff-written op-eds to give our editors an opportunity to share their takes on the burning questions facing the ad industry. We found that our readers value our opinions and so we’ve kept on doing it.

This piece typifies the analysis that AdExchanger editors can bring to the table. In a news story or feature, we lay out the facts. In our Data-Driven Thinking section, we say what needs to be said.

For example – and this is as true in the advertising industry as anywhere – just because it’s possible to do something technically, doesn’t mean we should.

As Anthony Vargas points out in this perceptive and also rather funny op-ed, it’s okay to blur the line between entertainment and advertising, but it’s also important to know when to stop – and to respect one’s audience.

The idea for this piece was sparked by a presentation given by an ad tech company at an AdExchanger-hosted event in March. The CEO demoed a so-called solution that would shrink the on-screen action of a TV show, in this case “Top Gun,” to make room to promote a product beside a “buy now!” QR code.

As Tom Cruise donned his famous aviator sunglasses and his leather bomber jacket, viewers could hold their phone up to the screen to make a purchase.

This triggered something in Anthony. Should all content be shoppable just because the ability exists to make it so? Maybe the ad tech industry should think twice about invading the living room.

Anthony asked these important questions and used them as an opportunity to draw an allusion to a Chilean TV campaign from the early 2000s for a local beer brand called Cerveza Cristal.

The ads, which had recently gone viral thanks to the strangeness of the internet, featured bottles of Cerveza Cristal seamlessly edited into scenes from the original Star Wars trilogy. These scenes were spliced into live broadcasts so that they looked like real product placements, as if, for example, Luke Skywalker was reaching for a Cerveza Cristal after a training session with Yoda.

The internet was tickled by this and people produced hilarious memes in response. But this is the type of virality that a brand can’t plan for – and it’s a gimmick. You can be sure that viewers would not take kindly to commercials being woven into scenes from movies and TV shows as a regular thing.

As Anthony astutely observes, “shoppable content may have its place – on morning talk shows or reality TV or a home improvement show – but it probably isn’t going to resonate with consumers within beloved, classic movies.”