What should TV do to save itself?

The PVR will kill TV advertising, so how can TV save itself?

I have a few ideas. If I were making a TV ad for the "PVR generation", I'd:

• Sight hooks - Perhaps an ad solely for PVR people shot in slow-mo, but with signs held by the actors, an introduction pop-out saying "PVR tuned ad from ". In my mind's eye I keep thinking of those kids books where you flip the corner of the page and create a movie. You could do the same thing for a PVR ad, by showing ten frames, each held for 3 seconds. Watched at regular speed it would look odd. Watched at PVR fast-forward, it would suddenly come to life.
  
• Silent ads - Why waste the sound. Plus, a silent ad will attract the attention of a viewer who is watching the ad in real time. With the appropriate pop-outs during that ad, there will be a touch of appealing humor. To that end, you could have sound that is totally out of synch with the pictures. There would be a double joke here. The script could be along the lines of "Thanks for listening to this ad. Since you are actually paying attention and listening to us -- unlike the people fast forwarding through this ad with their PVR -- we thought we'd give you a bit extra ..." The copy would offer "more" of something. Perhaps a tip on life, or an incentive to buy (e.g. "tell your sales person you heard this ad to get an extra 10% off".
  
• In-show Ticker overlay or Corner Pop-outs - People aren't going to speed through the show. If your ad shows up at the top or bottom during the show, then you can be sure people will see it. If you had a text ad scrolling by like a ticker randomly during the show, and featuring a company's URL I bet people would be more likely than ever to hit their computer and have a look at your ad.
• Brand Centric - The brand name should be displayed throughout the ad, and should be featured large. Even filling a full 1/4 of the screen the whole time. Maybe another 1/4 of the screen should have bullet-point copy about the purpose and benefits of the product.

YouTube's Super Bowl Results

Who won the game? WHO CARES! Who took top honors with the best ad. That's what matters.

YouTube's Super Bowl ad ranking contest is over, and the winner is ...

DORITOS. It is hard not to watch this ad without both cringing and laughing. Then, you have to watch it again. This ad was created out of a contest, and the winner walked away with $1,00,000,000,000,000. Wait a minute, that was a few too many zeroes. It was just a million. Doritos clearly got their money's worth and then some out of this contest.

• The ad has been viewed more than 2,000,000 times on YouTube alone (not including all the other duplicate posts and responses to it, which would have generated many million more impressions)
  
• Their contest micro-site was one of the most popular on the internet according to Alexa.com
• Their ad improved their brand impression according to Comscore.
  

Just in case you didn't see the ad yet ... here it is:

The PVR will kill TV Advertising ...

... which will kill TV.

So, someone better figure out a way to make money on TV soon.

A few weeks back I blogged that the PVR won't kill TV ads. I had just bought a PVR and had only just started recording shows. Now I know more about using my PVR, and am watching TV faster and watching far fewer ads.

I was wrong, the PVR will kill TV Advertising. When advertising revenues dry up then TV networks will go bankrupt, and the only broadcast source will be the internet.

Will the web kill TV advertising?

There is an enormous trend of people sitting in front of their TV and surfing the web at the same time. What happens when people do that? Well, they tune out the TV and tune into the web. So, if you're TV ad is running at that time, is it irrelevant?

• Yes it is.
  
• No it isn't. Your TV ad is a huge lever to getting the web surfer to interact with your brand and to take action on your TV ad's call-to-action in ways that were previously impossible. But, you have to do it right, and it has to be worthwhile for your prospect.

If I were making a TV for the Web Surfer, I'd:

• Call it out loud and clear at the start - Maybe start with an actor knocking on the TV screen, and calling out "Hey you. Yah, you, surfing the web while you watch TV. Watch this for 20 seconds."
• Provide a great hook to get people to the site. A mystery. A problem.
  
• Give a simple URL.
  
• Show the URL for a long time.
• Buy similar URLs that are mis-spellings.
• Put up a great and tightly integrated interactive micro-site that is more than just simply the TV ads.

A recent example that I experienced a couple of days ago ... I was watching TV and writing this blog, and a weird ad came on featuring "Soprano-sytle" gangsters. They come up to the TV screen and peer in at you. It gives you an awkward feeling. The ad is all quiet. At the end, there is a URL that is up for a long time that says "www.peerintoasoul.ca". What could I do? I had to satisfy my curiosity and go look at the site. It turns out the ad is for the new Kia Soul. The micro-site is not bad, but probably could have had a lot more for their target market to play with - such as a "Design your own Soul".

As with any critic, I could criticize a number of other things, but hey ... those who live in glass houses. Anyhow, I generally like what Kia did with the integration of the TV campaign and the Microsite.

Will the PVR kill TV Advertising?

NO! I got a new TV, PVR, and all the other widgets a few weeks back. I wondered if it would change the way I watch TV and ignore the ads. My observations so far about my PVR'ing habits:

• When I'm fast forwarding through the ads, I actually have to watch the ads. I can't tune them out and do something else.
  
• Ads with their brand ikon big and bold in the middle of the screen for a long time really pop out.
• Clearly I can't hear the ad.
  

If I were making a TV ad for the "PVR generation", I'd:

• Work on hooks that would work with sight alone - Perhaps an ad solely for PVR people shot in slow-mo, but with signs held by the actors, an introduction pop-out saying "PVR tuned ad from " and with a warning about 10 seconds before the end of the (regular speed) ad that says "HIT PLAY NOW. This sound advice brought to you by ". Of course, for that last bit to work, the ad would always need to be the last one before the show returned.
• Have silent ads. Why waste the sound. Plus, a silent ad will attract the attention of a viewer who is watching the ad live. With the appropriate pop-outs during that ad, there will be a touch of appealing humor.
• Keep your brand name up or pop it up frequently throughout the commercial. It needs to be big, probably centered (to avoid getting lost in the fray of the PVR's own overlays), and displayed for long times.
  

We got our new TV ...

But TV still sucks.

We bought a beautiful 40" Sony Z series LCD, with a Sony Blu Ray player, a Sony Home Theater system, and an HD-PVR.

• There is no question that the picture is bigger, brighter, and more beautiful than our old TV. Even when we just have the new TV processing the old analog channels.
  
• The sound is clearly better. From time-to-time I look over my shoulder to see where that dog is that is barking in the background. Wow, it is just the great speakers.
• The Blu Ray DVD is fantastic. The picture is almost too good.
  
• The quality of the image and sound from the digital TV really is a step up. When you flip back and forth between the digital stations and the analog you can see the difference. But, I have to think that will be fleeting. In a couple of weeks, I won't care.
• Yah, and the HDTV is just a bit better quality picture and sound too.

BUT! Who cares. The quality of the shows themselves still suck. Our choice last night included ... Law and Order (in a couple of different versions), CSI (also in a couple of different versions), news, news, news, & more news, talk news, political news, real-life TV shows, Two and a Half Men, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Crashed, and a bunch of other trash. What crap.

It is a sad waste of great technology to film and broadcast such crap content in digital and HD. No wonder TV advertising revenue is falling.

Super Bowl Ads

Check em out and vote ... Youtube's got 'em.

Also - watch them go to work. The top-10 Google searches as of the time I publish this include:

5. denny s free grand slam
8. denny s locations

This is in response to Denny's Super Bowl ad that is offering a free Grand Slam breakfast to everyone in America on Tuesday. There's that big word that should prove popular this year - FREE - being pushed by a low-cost business. Look out!

Ready for the Super-Bowl?

I don't even know who is playing. Who cares really!

What is important is what we are going to get for ads this year.

Here are some sites to check out:

• SuperBowl Ads. This site claims to be the best, and perhaps you can see why as soon as you hit it. It has an archive of years worth of ads, plus ongoing reporting and commentary about campaigns.
• MySpace. They will have all of the 2009 SuperBowl ads up on their site at 3pm ET.
• Google Video. I'm sure that they'll be updated as soon as they are aired.

As for some of the ads rejected this year:

• Pro-life
• PETA (my sense of humor ... this was from "Pork Magazine"). Check out the ads for yourself on the PETA site.
• AshleyMadison.com's Adultery Ad
• 3-second ads

Wait a minute ... Is GoDaddy.com getting a chance to run an ad this year? I can't wait!

Trends for 2009: #15. TV will do "okay" this year.

Doing "okay" is like someone saying you are "nice". It doesn't really stand out.

As reported in the Guardian, a Deloitte study suggests that the Recession could be "good news" for TV. Why? Well, in a recession people tend to stay home more and consequently watch TV.

UK television viewing hours were already rising in the second half of 2008 and are expected to rise another 30 minutes per week per viewer in 2009, according to the report from the technology, media and telecommunications practice at Deloitte.

Mind you, to counter that point, with the forecast massive reduction in advertising budgets TV advertising revenues will get hammered. eMarketer says that most researchers predicting a 5% or greater decline in spending.

On top of that, with the fragmentation of TV audiences away from the big networks, the supply of options has gone way up, and the demand for advertising time on the big networks has come way down. The result? Their advertising revenues will probably suffer more than most. Consequently they are looking at options to cut their costs - such as shutting stations.

What's a Marketer to do in 2009? This set of answers will sound remarkably similar to yesterday's!

• Look carefully at the price and performance of all media - this includes the dying print world, the new interactive world, and everything in between. You never know ... you might find that for your particular product or service a newspaper ad still outperforms an interactive campaign. But, more than likely, that just means that you aren't yet doing the right things with your interactive campaign.
  
• Ensure your TV advertising is effective. While this may sound obvious ... actually go out and do some research to ensure that your ads have recall, and that the message in them is being understood.
  
• Produce TV-like commercials specifically for the web (you will also find this one in my Trend about Interactive Advertising): In the "old days" you might have produced a TV commercial and then posted it to the web. That won't do any longer. Now it is important to shoot TV commercials specifically for the web. How are they different? First off they are typically lower video quality. They also might be shorter. In TV-land, the viewer must sit in front of your ad for 30 seconds. On the web, they will leave you more quickly. On the other hand ... your ad may be several minutes long. On the web you can produce an "advertising epic" - so long as it is truly captivating. People will gladly watch your entertainment, and maybe even forward it off to friends, and you won't have to shell out for a bunch of TV air time. A big way to make your online ads different is to allow a viewer to interact with the commercial. Perhaps the viewer should be able to select characters in the ad, then choose various changes to your plot line.

Will I be right? The year will tell!

• Follow this blog and watch for the next marketing trends I'm forecasting for 2009.
• Feel free to contact Market GoGo to discuss this further.

Penile Fracture - A top searched Google phrase

Oh, the things you learn from watching TV ... So, for anyone who watches Grey's Anatomy, last night one of the characters suffered a "Penile Fracture". Jokingly, I said to my wife, "I guess you'll have to Google that one to find out if it is possible."

To my surprise this morning, I noticed that "Penile Fracture" was one of the top searched Google terms. Ouch. More to my surprise, it is actually possible. Double ouch.

The National Post has a pretty good article about it.

I wonder why no one scooped up the sponsored search terms on "Penile Fracture" right away. I bet the Marketing teams at Viagra and other similar companies wish they had!