Ad Age has this interesting story on what kind of ad-content will make the 4 million users of TiVo (DVRs) download ads and view them.
Unlike the era of network television, consumers increasingly in the future will skip TV commercials as they use more of these devices like DVRs, Video iPods etc. Essentially, the 30 sec TV spots were built for the past era of 'interruption marketing'. The fact that they would record programs and watch them at their convenience puts a lot of pressure on evolving a completely new format for the on-demand television era.
The key questions to me really are :
- How will consumers search for TV commercials with a TiVo?
- Is it interesting enough for consumers to search for TV commercials? I for one won't.
- When they search, will there be links for TV commercials that will be thrown-up?
- If the message interests them, will they ever click to see the commercial?
I am not so sure, if it will work that way. We still seem to be revolving around an old format.
I don't have answers, but I have started thinking.
Would love to hear and learn from all of you. Do write-in your comments