Wednesday, January 21, 2009

An idea about TV ads in future

My thought on TV advertising in future….

Current situation – TV audiences are diminishing in number and they are getting old. Yes, they still do have money to spend, but in the long run, TV programs will be delivered via the web rather than through the traditional TV set. Yes, there is a trend that TV sets are more become a LCD monitor with some PC capabilities. That’s another sorry, it is no doubt that many young folks are watching TV programs on their PC/laptop/netbook than before, most young people just want to watch whatever they want to watch at the time that they want. So, TV Guides will become obsolete if they don’t change in future.

TV programs are popping up on the web in many ways: in the official websites of the TV broadcasting companies, in blogs, in various websites with online TV weblinks, Youtube, Joost, Hulu, etc. Based on what I see in many cases, the broadcasters are just using similar tactics are they did on traditional TV, i.e. attach TV ads to TV programs, kinda force folks to watch them before they watch the TV clips.

Thoughts for the future – As I said before, people want to watch whatever they want whenever they want. It also means that they will not tolerate the ‘enforced’ ads that they need to watch in order to watch the shows of their choice. That just not only apply to TV shows, it applies webpage as well. Cites an example of Forbes.com, how many times I will look up the ‘x’ at the top right corner to turn off the whatever ad they want to show me when I just want to read the article that I want. Those intrusive ads just annoy me, I would say, don’t show what I don’t want to see, I don’t care how good your product or services are! However, does it mean that ad has no role in future? No, they just need to do that differently. There is something call ‘product placement’ in movies or TV shows. Like you see a guy pulling a bottle of Pepsi slowly in an ‘awkward’ position just want to show you the ‘Pepsi’ logo. That was bad! But, if product placement can be done wisely, it should help a lot.

For example, when you are watching ‘Desperate Housewife’, some might want to know where do those actresses get their clothes from, or when you watch CSI, you may want to know where you can buy those cool gadgets, like torches, or the nice suits that the actors wore. If someone can develop a technology that can allow folks to ‘freeze’ the screenshot, and show ‘links’ and ‘pointers’ to describe where are those clothes or products on the screens are from, then that should fit the idea of getting whatever viewers want whenever they want it. E.g. they may put a yellow dot at the top right corner of the screen showing that product placement info is available for that screen. If there is none, then the yellow dot will disappear. I know that would be able distracting as well, but certainly, showing the dot is optional and per user request. Somewhat like to on-screen script for the visual impaired. I’m sure that if I want certain product information on that screen that I watch, when I get my butt moving to click those links to view about those product info, I more likely will go to buy that product that just viewing some blind advertising that wasting my time. Like, if I saw the actor is driving a nice car on the show, if I want to know about that car, I can click the links to view the info about that car, or click other links to view the detail spec of the car, where can I get it, and what price. You know what I mean? That is more a smart advertising approach than the current one. Cos, I think this kind of ‘Pull advertising’ is much more effective than the ‘push advertising’ that are prevalently done in today’s media.

I know there are still a wide variety of considerations involved, like what kind of products can that applied? The cost involved? The nature of products, etc. However, what I just mentioned is an idea that must be further built upon in order to be effective. Just two cents from me!

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