Hydration breaks at this year’s FIFA World Cup have proven controversial, with viewers expressing frustration at the ad breaks that some broadcasters have inserted into the three-minute pauses.
British broadcaster ITV has chosen not to do so, and Kelly Williams, ITV’s MD of commercial, says it comes down to respecting the audience experience as well as advertisers’ enthusiasm for live sports. ITV has run picture-in-picture formats in breaks of play at this year’s Six Nations, a format which the broadcaster sees as less disruptive since it doesn’t cut away from the action. But for the World Cup, ITV would only have been allowed to run picture-in-picture ads for FIFA’s partners, which would have been too narrow a band of advertisers to make sense commercially – hence ITV’s decision to leave these breaks ad-free.
In this interview, Williams also discusses the UK launch of Universal Ads and the need for broadcaster collaboration. Filmed at RTL Beach in Cannes.
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