Fox Sports to Offer 6-Second Ad Spots in Football, Baseball Telecasts – Variety

Fox is making good on its promise to bring innovation to TV advertising formats. Fox Networks Group on Thursday confirmed it will offer six-second advertising spots in its upcoming pro football and baseball telecasts as a means of improving the game-watching experience for viewers and offering more effective brand messaging vehicles for marketers.

The short blurbs will be available as part of Fox Sports regular inventory for NFL games starting the week of Sept. 10. The six-second format will also be used in some of Fox Sports’ college football telecasts and Major League Soccer games.

Joe Marchese, Fox Networks Group’s president of advertising revenue, said the format was an important step forward for the company and its advertising partners.

“Working with brands and agencies that choose to buy these new formats, we will heighten consumer engagement with and immersion in our content while simultaneously giving meaningful attention and focus to brand messages,” Marchese said. “We have already been collaborating with brands and agencies that understand the need to evolve the model. They are the ones that are going to receive the prime attention and get ahead, leaving behind those that try to make everything fit a legacy TV-buying model.”

Fifteen-second spots have become more commonplace in recent years as networks and marketers work to find ways to get ad messages to viewers who are now accustomed to skipping through ad breaks via DVRs or watching on ad-free platforms such as Netflix. A six-second blurb would have been seen as a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gamble just a few years ago, but now Fox is banking on the prospect that viewers won’t bother to tune out such a short spot, especially if the creative is compelling.