I t's my feeling that television advertising will, over the next two years, go through the most dramatic transformation ever in its long life. In many respects, I think it will die out and defer to the Internet as the marketers' main venue for product advertising. T hing is, television advertising has entered the world of The Night of the Living Dead, as frighteningly portrayed in the 1968, cult horror movie from George Romono and Menahem Golen. The scenes (and close-ups) of rotted, but vexingly-insistent, animated corpses making their way through over the countryside in what we in South Carolina might call the 'Ghoul's Shag', will be replicated by the television advertising industry in its dying attempt to remain viable to marketers.
TiVo® usage continually increases among cable and Dish subscribers. And, therein is placed into subscribers' hands, the power to avoid and dismiss at will any and all television advertising. Imagine investing $10 million into a food, recreation, entertainment ... whatever ... product television ad only to have your product's name to never appear in target audience homes! U sing myself as an example, television advertising is having less and less of an effect on me while the Internet is growing and transforming into a venue I call, 'Advertising On Demand'. The marketplace where marketers are beginning to figuratively shout, "Hey! I'm advertising at ya! And, when you want it!" W hat has changed, as I see things, is that the market audience no longer waits to be 'advertised to', but instead takes the initiative by going onto the Internet and seeking out information concerning goods, products and services that they are interested in. It used to be, that the consumer would, unconsciously (most of the time) wait to receive magazines, direct mail, radio and television advertising in a linear method of presentation. That is, the consumer would go through their day, be exposed to advertising as they received the mail, as they drove to work listening to the radio, as they read their newspapers, and as they watched television. Sometimes, the linear dynamic would be multi-convergent as consumers watched television while, at the same time, reading a newspaper or magazine; thereby being confronted simultaneously by two forms of advertising. Now, what I do, for example, is when something interests me as the result of intellectual or sensory stimulation, I no longer wait around in the hope that a relative advertising message will find its way to me in order to satisfy my curiosity and needs. To illustrate: Being that it is a lovely, warm spring day here in the Carolinas, I begin thinking about going to Wrightsville Beach at Wilmington, NC. I'll need lodging. Do I wait around for tourist lodging information from Wilmington to seek me out via a magazine ad, or by direct mail? No. I immediately spring onto the Internet and type 'Wilmington, NC lodging' into the search engine and, viola! I'm presented with all kinds of offers from Howard Johnson, Hampton Inn, Hyatt, and a host of other hotels and motels. I f, to illustrate further, I want a specific book. Do I wait in hopes that Barnes & Noble's advertising will reach me through the local newspaper, or by direct mail catalog, or do I go to the Internet? I go to the Internet. I will then look for the book at BarnesandNoble.com... and then at Amazon.com... and then on Ebay.com... and then at the myriad of booksellers whose existence I learned about from their selling activities at both Amazon and Ebay. One ad leads me, the consumer, to another ad, and then to another ad, and so forth, for as long as I have the energy and interest to seek out book deals. Q uestion: If you were a major traditional print advertiser, what would you do? Where would you put your media dollars a half year from now? Two years from now? In magazines and newsprint, or, into the Internet? B ecause it has been the DONMACideas! philosophy that Internet content has the same validity and value as print, and direct mail advertising, I would put increasing amounts of my advertising budget into the Internet. The reasons are obvious: The cost of print production is going up. The cost of paper is forever increasing. And, where direct mail is concerned, the cost of postage is fast becoming outrageous. And, the big thing: advertising content to the Internet can be up-loaded and running faster than any other medium other than television's 'Breaking News'; and even then, I'm not so sure that Internet spontaneity isn't faster. According to the Wall Street Journal April 17, 2006, consumers currently spend 51% of their time watching TV; 23% listen to radio; 3% read magazines; 3% play video games, and 15% of their time is spent on the Internet. Watch how those figures change over the next two years. In five years' time, I'm predicting that television advertising will be very different than what we are now familiar with. It's going to have to dramatically change, or it will be gone. The same report states that in 1997, major companies spent less than one billion dollars advertising on the Internet; in 2005, that amount rose to over $12 billion. In five years' time, I'm predicting between $50 to $100 billion will be spent on Internet advertising because of the nationwide availability of broadband and improvements in presentation media. Television has one other massive problem that's going to render it passe' unless the cable and satellite dish services wake up to reality: Customers who pay big bucks for their television service are rebelling against the onslaught of infomercial programming. It is not fair to subscribers to have to pay high monthly fees while half of their viewing offerings are blatant advertising. Why should customers have to pay to be 'advertised at'? Enter the Internet - exit The Night of the Living Dead. |
