The Advertising Arms Race
What’s the difference techie people and ad people? Attitude.
This article in Adweek describes how online video watched on computers is going to save the video ad space from DVR ad skipping on TV.
Seriously?
For half a century or more, TV has been the ultimate one-way medium, in which the programmer controlled not only the message, but the delivery time and channel. This one-way conversation was interrupted by DVR, which is simply a computer that is attached to a TV, giving the viewer the ability to control at least the delivery time and making the channel irrelevant.
On the other hand, computers have put power in the hands of the masses. From Napster to YouTube to MySpace to Facebook to RSS readers, computers have enabled people to control their content. Computers and the web are all about giving people the power to control their media and the conversation.
The idea that moving video onto computers will enable advertisers to prevent commercial skipping is ludicrous. Five days after the iPhone was released someone had unlocked it so that it worked on networks other than AT&T. Although the record labels were able to take down Napster, music and movies are still free on sites like Kazaa, Limewire, and the various BitTorrent-style sites.
Advertisers are not going to win a war against techies and consumers to force them to consume media when/how the advertiser wants. The future for advertisers is not using technology to force-feed commercials consumers. The future for advertisers is in being smart and clever and relevant – reaching consumers in non-obtrusive yet effective ways that aren’t so in-your-face that some 15 year old geek is going to destroy your technology and business model between WoW sessions.