We’ve been hearing for several years now that television advertising is becoming an endangered species. TiVO was going to kill the 30-second spot and we as viewers will be awash in product placement and “This Show Sponsored By” promos.
Um… don’t look now, but in a few years, the problem may be that no one is watching TV at all. According to a study mentioned in the New York Times Technology section, 83% of children ages 10-14 spend an hour or more on the Internet per day, compared to 68% in the same age range spend an hour or more in front of the TV.
That’s a bona fide trend, and it is only going to get worse for television advertisers. Even at that relatively young age, a majority of children did research online before making purchase decisions.
What is an advertiser to do? Well… you have to look for innovative ways to get your message out there. Any campaign must have an online component, and online video is becoming more and more popular. You must also develop a social networking strategy. The same study cited by the New York Times says 72% of children aged 10-14 belong to a social networking site (like MySpace). In a few years when this group enters the workforce and develops their own purchasing power, they’re going to be less influenced by television, and more influenced by what they come across online.
I definitely agree that social networking is the way of the future, it works for advertisers as well because you can highly target what a user wants, an example is how on facebook I have “become a fan” of a number of products that update me.
In terms of video I think video advertising will always be relevant (at least for the near future), just the method of delivery will change, instead of a TV where you broadcast blindly to everyone, targeted advertising on video serving sites like Youtube.com & hulu.com will become more prevalent.