Future Commercials: More Entertaining or More Annoying?
Jan. 13, 2009 — -- In Arthur C. Clarke's novel "2001: A Space Odyssey," by 2001 interplanetary space travel is possible and there are cities on the moon. Science fiction writers predicted that by now we would have flying cars and household robots.
Predicting the future has never been an exact science. Probably because we start with the bias that things will get a lot better or a lot worse when generally what happens is incremental growth on the path we are already traveling. So it is with advertising.
Looking into the near future we see emerging technology being focused on capturing consumer attention and attempts to increase our consumption by adding interactivity and more opportunity for consumers to customize.
Finding ways to keep people engaged in advertising can't come too soon for advertisers. Almost one-third of Americans have a DVR and using a DVR or computer to time-shift (use the technology to watch at a time other than the originally scheduled broadcast time) and skip the advertisements has become prevalent.
Generally speaking, consumers don't seek out advertising -- rather, advertisers look for ways to reach consumers and hold them captive while they relay their messages. So what are advertisers and media companies doing to continue to capture consumer eyeballs?
Chances are if you are a cable TV subscriber, you already have interactive TV options, many of which you are probably unaware of. The most common is the ability to watch a long-form commercial (Video-on-demand or VOD) about a product on a dedicated channel.
Many advertisers make these longer commercials when they are shooting the 30- or 60-second ones and you can access by going to the channel listed on the bottom of the screen during the commercial.
