For decades, technology has chipped away at TV. VCRs, streaming Internet video, file sharing, DVRs, on-demand cable and mobile video provided TV alternatives, decreased TV's audience, increased time shifting or encouraged ad skipping. One of the intriguing things about social media is that it is the first technological advance that really benefits TV without specifically being about TV.

Of course, television was social before we had social media. TV shows drove "water cooler" chatter since Lucy Ricardo gave birth to "Little Ricky"--71.7% of all American TV sets were tuned to "I Love Lucy" the night Lucille Ball's character gave birth in 1953. Crowdsourcing is not new to television, either; letter writing campaigns to save TV shows date back to at least 1968 when fans got NBC to renew "Star Trek" for another season. The fact TV viewing is innately social makes it the perfect match for today's social media and mobile technology.

This blog post was cross-posted with my new blog on the Forrester blog at http://blogs.forrester.com/marketing/2010/01/who-is-the-qb-of-the-marketing-bowl-social-media-or-super-bowl-ads.html

If you read this blog, you likely already care less about the Saints versus the Colts than you do about Super Bowl ads versus Social Media marketing.  After all, the real money isn't earned from the battle on the field but in the battle that occurs during timeouts: Each player on last year's winning team earned a bonus of $83,000 while NBC earned around $213 million in ad revenue for the telecast.

A shift is occurring in the relative importance to marketers of Social Media and Super Bowl advertising.  Of course, the 2010 Super Bowl isn't the first we've seen of the marriage of Social Media and Super Bowl ads.  Last year, Doritos struck gold with a UGC (User-Generated Content) ad produced by two unemployed brothers, and the brand is back this year with more UGC ads competing for even greater prize money.

But this year, there's a difference:  The first evidence that the world has changed between Super Bowl XLIII and XLIV came from Pepsi's news it would not advertise during the big game; instead the brand is opting to invest its marketing budget in a Social Media marketing program called Pepsi Refresh.  Many of us in the Social Media business were a bit shocked by this, not because Pepsi saw the importance of Social Media marketing but because they saw it as an alternative rather than an adjunct to their Super Bowl ad campaign.  As I said to 1to1 Media at the time, "There was a part of me that was a little surprised that (Pepsi) didn't think about layering a social media program on top of a Super Bowl ad."

While Pepsi is to be commended for using the "Social Media vs. Super Bowl ads" hype for terrific PR advantage, the fact is that advertising and Social Media go together like brats and beer.  Advertising is great at raising awareness to a mass audience, while Social Media marketing is perfect for building deeper relationships and influence.  The two are mutually beneficial, not mutually exclusive.

This paired benefit is not lost on other brands; in fact,the first sentence of the New York Times article says it all, "Coca-Cola is telling Pepsi-Cola that when it comes to Super Bowl advertising, you can walk and chew gum at the same time."  Coke is one brand that will use its Super Bowl ad to promote its Facebook program, http://facebook.com/livepositively, where consumers can send virtual goods and earn Coca-Cola donations to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.  Audi is another Super Bowl advertiser that is using their valuable ad time to drive consumers into a Social Media venue;  their "Green Police" ads direct consumers to the Audi YouTube channel where the humorous ads can be viewed, rated, and shared.  On Twitter,Unilever will be engaging people who tweet about their Dove Men+Care ads in real-time during the game and E*Trade will be directing viewers to BabyMail, a site to send e-mail messages using voices that simulate baby talk.

And this is where the interesting shift in the recognition of Social Media marketing is evident:  Last year, brands used Social Media marketing mostly to develop content for and promote their Super Bowl ads, but this year Super Bowl ads are being dedicated to the support of larger Social Media marketing strategies.  The servant has become the master.

The reason for this shift is obvious:  Consumer habits are changing.  Back in 2007, Forrester's North American Social Technographics Online Survey found that only 25% were Joiners--people who maintained a profile on social networking sites.   In 2009, that figure had risen to 59%.  The shift in consumer media consumptions is continuing, and this year's Super Bowl will not be the end of the evolution of marketers' budgets and strategies toward Social Computing.

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• Pepsi kicks Super Bowl and goes social (tomaltman.com)

[I just posted my second blog post since joining Forrester, this time on the Marketing Leadership Blog.  You'll find this same blog post cross-posted at http://blogs.forrester.com/agencies/2009/12/social-media-is-the-new-super-bowl-pepsi-refresh-and-what-it-means-to-marketers.html]

If you track Social Media news, I'm sure you saw the eye-catching headline: "Pepsi's Big Gamble: Ditching Super Bowl for Social Media".  For the first time in 23 years--23 years!--the brand will not be purchasing a Super Bowl spot.  Instead, it is sinking $20M into a Social Media program called Pepsi Refresh. The Pepsi Refresh site will allow people to vote for worthwhile community projects, and Pepsi expects to sponsor thousands of local efforts via this program. 

What does this news mean to marketers?  Some potential ramifications (and non-ramifications) include:

• No, this doesn't mean TV is going away, but it will be fighting for marketing dollars on an increasingly level playing field with Social and Interactive tactics.  Despite the meltdown in traditional media, TV advertising will continue to be a big line item in the marketing budget for top consumer brands, but expect it to continue to shrink as a portion of the overall marketing budget.  Shar VanBoskirk said it well:  "Advertising budgets will decline. But marketing investments won't."  Moreover, as Lisa Bradner points out in her report, Adaptive Brand Marketing, the era of annual TV budgets is ending.  Expect more iterative budget setting based on "test and learn" cycles where the best and most successful ideas can quickly command more funding regardless of channel.
  
  
• Social Media programs don't begin and end with Social Media:  There can be a mistaken assumption that Social Media Marketing means brands being on Twitter and Facebook.  As the Pepsi program demonstrates, Social Media is the means to an end, and not the end itself. 
  
  It doesn't matter that you have followers, fans, or a community; those are assets, not return.  It is how you use those assets that matters.  In Pepsi's case, they've clearly found a way to gain new followers and fans, but that's not the objective of the program; instead, the brand is putting Social Media to work for a higher goal--making the world a better place and associating the brand with that vision. 
  
  
• Social Media measurement = brand measurement:  Do you think Pepsi is going to measure the effectiveness of this program merely by how many fans or page views they get?  They may count retweets, but what are the chances the $20M investment will be evaluated based upon 140-character pass-alongs? 
  
  The success of this program won't be measured primarily with Social Media metrics (fans, followers, RTs, votes, etc.) but on traditional brand and marketing metrics.  How much PR does Pepsi earn from the program and the funding of thousands of community projects?  How many people hear about the program, and how does it affect their purchase intent for the brand?  How many points increase does Pepsi see when it asks questions such as, "Pepsi is a brand that cares about me and my community?" and "Pepsi is a brand I'd recommend to friends?"  Does the brand see a lift in sales?  Those are the types of metrics that matter in this (or most every other) marketing program.  My peer Nate Elliot points out that you must "choose metrics based on objectives rather than technologies."
  
  
• Another nail in the coffin of merely likable advertising.  Super Bowl advertising has become its own kind of sport.  Shortly after the big game, the scoreboard goes up (USA Today's Ad Meter) and the winning team does an end zone victory dance (agency press releases bragging about the results).  All this hullabaloo implies that ads are entertainment and likability is all that matters, but it is just one element--and hardly the most important--in effective advertising. 
  
  Pepsi's actions demonstrate a commitment to something deeper than jokey ads.  Pepsi is betting the brand can win by making a deeper connection (consumer involvement versus seeing an ad) for a greater purpose (making the world a better place versus a laugh at the end of a 30-second spot.)   As my online friend Brandon Sutton recently wrote on his blog, "Instead of trying to get clever with your messaging, why not try thinking smarter by understanding how humans think and behave and how your brand fits into the bigger picture of this dynamic?"
  
  
• Social Media changes everything.  Social Media alters the playing field for everyone within the enterprise; formerly successful strategies and tactics are being challenged, while old and tired methodologies are getting new legs.  For example, Best Buy is using Social Media to improve its customer support in new ways;  Starbucks is embracing consumers' ideas and driving innovation and loyalty; and, as we see, Pepsi is using Social Media to give new energy to cause marketing.
  
  Cause marketing is hardly new, but Social Media gives brands the ability to power it in new ways.  Previously, cause marketing tended to be about a company making a donation and leveraging that for PR, advertising and in-bound links. Today, cause marketing can be about embracing customers' values and ideas about how to spend charitable dollars and then energizing consumers and employees to get involved and make a difference.  Social Media offers us new ways to breathe life into this old marketing idea!
    

Early next year we'll find out how Pepsi's decision to trade the Super Bowl for Social Media plays out, but it's already earned the brand enormous visibility. Articles about their decision can be found on ABC, CNN, NPR, Reuters,  AP, Wall Street Journal, and others.  Of course, the first brand to dump Super Bowl advertising in place of Social Media marketing will earn headlines; the fifth brand to do so will not. 

So, how are you going to use Social Media to give old tactics and strategies new life in 2010?

The latest Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey has been released, and it serves as yet another reminder of just how little consumers trust what brands and marketers tell them. The report should provide Social Media practitioners with further support for increased spending on Social Media, since it is clear the way for brands to earn trust is to get consumers talking to each other.

Just 55 percent of consumers have any degree of trust (defined by Nielsen as respondents indicating they "completely" or "somewhat" trust information) in the emails they sign up for, radio ads, and billboards. A slightly higher percentage--around 60 percent--trust the information they receive from advertising in magazines, in newspapers, and on television. Despite Federal law, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, that requires advertising be truthful and fair, barely half of consumers trust what brands say in their marketing communications.

Traditional media fared pretty poorly in the Nielsen report, and some forms of online marketing scored even worse--far less than 50% of consumers expressed any degree of trust in search engine ads, banner ads, and text ads on cell phones. But the news was much better for Public Relations, Digital Marketing, and Social Media Marketing, because those are the areas in which consumers have the greatest level of trust. The four highest media for trust were:

• Recommendations from people known: 90%
• Consumers opinions posted online: 70%
• Brand Web sites: 70%
• Editorial content (e.g., newspaper article): 69%

It comes as no surprise that consumers would trust the opinions of people they already know, but I think it is a little shocking to consider the trust placed in the opinions of others with whom they are unfamiliar. Think of it this way: Consumers more trust the unsubstantiated, unregulated, anonymous, and grammatically dubious ramblings of complete strangers than they do the expensive, carefully-vetted, beautifully-executed, government-regulated ads placed on TV, radio, and in print.

If you read Experience: The Blog regularly, you'll recognize a recurring theme is that marketers must stop focusing so much effort on broadcasting messages at consumers and put greater effort toward engaging consumers with marketing that is respectful, desired, authentic, personalized, conversational, and valued. The findings of this Nielsen report add to the evidence that the shift toward more social and influence-inducing marketing is vital.

If you are a marketer at an organization, here's a quick exercise: Check your budget for the amount being spent on media buys; now compare this to allocation for PR, your Web site, and Social Media (even assuming there is a Social Media line item). My guess would be few (if any) marketing budgets in 2009 assign greater investments to Social Media, media relations, and digital marketing--channels that earn the greatest level of consumer trust--than to buying media.

To be fair, trust is just one emotional component of advertising, and there are obviously tasks for which print and TV ads are better suited than Web sites, Social Media, and PR, such as broadcasting a tightly-defined message with a great deal of scale. Still, how valuable is broadcasting a message in a medium in which almost half of consumers feel no degree of trust? (We can now respond to John Wanamaker's famous complaint, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." It's the half of all media lost to a lack of trust on the part of the target audience!)

There are signs that budgets are shifting toward Social Media. In March of this year, eMarketer reported on a study by the Aberdeen Group that found "63% of the companies in their survey (defined as best-in-class) planned to increase their social media marketing budgets this year." One in five companies expected to increase their Social Media spending by more than 25 percent, and another 16 percent were planning for an increase of 11 to 25 percent.

This is good news to be sure, but the big percentages may hide what is still extremely modest investment in Social Media. In the same month the Aberdeen Group report was published, Adweek described a Forrester Research study that found "75 percent of marketers have budgeted less than $100,000 for social media efforts over the next year." That great big 25 percent increase could bring Social Media Spending in many companies from $100,000 all the way up to $125,000 (roughly enough to add a Social Media intern)!

Brands certainly cannot give up mass media, but in an age where consumer perception of advertising messages is being filtered through layers of mistrust and marginalized by cynicism, the time has come to make a serious commitment establishing our brands in the ways consumers trust. Soon, being the loudest and broadest messenger in a medium consumers don't trust simply won't count as much as being the most authentic, available, and accessible brand in the media consumers do.

This article is an unintentional sequel to last week's post, "Crowdsourcing: When the Crowd is Wrong." That article explored the problems that can occur when a small, passionate group of folks overwhelms a crowdsource program. But what about when a small, passionate group is the intended audience?

The right influencers enlisted for the right reason can yield extraordinary benefits, but influencers can be a bad influence if they are not carefully identified or if their impact is permitted to exceed their knowledge, vision, and capabilities. The world of entertainment provides two cautionary tales about the importance of identifying both who are influencers and what they will be permitted to influence.

The first case study is "Snakes on a Plane." Many consider it to be the first movie ever crowdsourced because online fans were invited and allowed to influence important elements of the movie's script. Interest in the film went viral well in advance of its release, purely on the merits of it's kitschy title. Fans (or should we call them "pre-fans"?) began to upload fake plots and trailers, and filmmakers eventually reshot parts of the movie "to meet the fans' expectations."

According to the Hollywood Reporter, The changes demanded by these "influencers" included bumping the rating from PG-13 to R with "more gore, more death, more nudity, more snakes and more death scenes." One well-known addition to the film was the now-infamous line, "I want these mother####ing snakes off the mother####ing plane," which was based on a fan trailer that became a viral sensation.

To paraphrase the late, great Paul Harvey, you already know "the rest of the story." "Snakes on a Plane" performed terribly--it opened with a meager $15 million in its first weekend and slithered out of theaters with a total gross of just $34 million.

That the movie was bad surprised no one--not even the Web fanatics--but it was shocking to see the online frenzy evaporate once the film premiered. In fact, it could be argued the fans hurt rather than helped the movie--the R rating increased the appeal to horror fans but limited the merchandising options and decreased the potential audience by omitting 13- to 18-year-old moviegoers. At best, it seems the influencers amounted to nothing, and at worst, they harmed rather than helped the movie.

So, where did the filmmakers go wrong? First of all, they mistook an online craze launched by four small words--snakes, on, a, plane--as an endorsement of the movie. The people who influenced the script weren't fans of the movie; they were fans of the wacky title. SoaP producers treated as influencers people who didn't have wide networks, had virtually no knowledge of the actual product, and offered nothing by way of insights about moviegoers or the factors that make a movie a successful.

Secondly, the producers allowed the fans to influence inward (altering the product) but didn't activate the outbound influence (improving a wider audience's perception of and intention to see the film). Instead of designing programs to expand the buzz to a more diverse audience, New Line launched a song-writing contest that didn't appeal to anyone outside of the existing base of fans who were already creating and uploading SoaP-themed songs. In short, they failed to use the potential influence of their fans.

A contrasting view of how to identify and handle influencers can be found with "Battlestar Galactica." The show, which recently left the air, bore little resemblance to the schlocky TV program of the 80s. The new series offered a mature and challenging vision of the future and was widely hailed by critics. Salon called the show, "electrifying, frank about the predicaments of the present in a way that a TV drama about the present could never be." E! Online offered a "hearty thank you to the creators, cast and crew" for the "entirety of four epic years with this great story."

Executive Producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick specifically set out to deconstruct the original television series. Cylons looked like humans, capes and lasers were replaced with military uniforms and bullets, and Starbuck was turned into a woman. In the words of Bonnie Hammer, then the president of the SciFi Network, "It was no longer your father's Battlestar Galactica. It was provocative, it was edgy, it was dark."

But what if a certain group of influencers had gotten their way? As Entertainment Weekly reports, Moore got a rocky reception when he showed preview clips at Galacticon, a Battlestar Galactica fan convention. "The clips ended and they booed and they hissed," he reports. Richard Hatch, star of the original series, agrees, "It was icy-cold in there. It was obvious that no one liked it." In the end, a Galacticon attendee stood up and asked Moore, "Now that you've heard all of this, will you take a pledge now that if this show goes to series, you will make sure it's more in keeping with what we would like to see?''

Moore could very well have treated the attendees of Galacticon as influencers; after all, this was a bunch of people so in love with the mythology of the show that 25 years later they still traveled across the country to gather. So what was the Executive Producer's response to the fan's question? Moore didn't promise changes to appease the existing fan base. He didn't even tell the Galacticon fans he'd give consideration to their concerns. Instead, Moore stood before the only group of consumers who gave a damn about the Battlestar Galactica franchise and said, "This is the show. You may not like the show, you don't have to watch the show, but this is the show that we're making.''

Rather than listen to the fans of the campy 80s series, the SciFi Channel instead turned to other science fiction fans, many of whom appreciated darker and more serious fare such as the "Matrix" series and cult flick "Blade Runner." In doing so, they rejected the easy and obvious choice for a group of influencers and instead found the ones that really mattered. At a subsequent Comic-Con convention, the stars of the new show were "pleasantly surprised at the positive fan response."

Moore and his crew might have been tempted to take the same course as the makers "Snakes on a Plane," opting to involve the existing fan base, turning to them for scripts, and allowing the BSG fans to set a different direction. But they didn't. Why? Bonnie Hammer summed it up best when she said that fans "can't drive the creative process."

There is a great deal of wisdom in that statement. It's a message that doesn't contradict the concepts of crowdsourcing and influencers but instead enhances them. In our newly Social world, brands should tap their fans, involve consumers, gather their insight, and provide opportunities for collaboration, but we must never forget that strategy and vision is the essential job of those within the organization and cannot be left to the influences of crowds.

A couple days ago, I wrote that evaluating the likability of Super Bowl ads has become big business for media outlets like USA Today, regardless of whether that likability translates into marketing effectiveness. That was one way Super Bowl advertising spoke more about the state of marketing than it did about the brands being advertised. Here's another way: Ad agencies continue to have their place in the marketing world threatened.

It wasn't long ago that ad agencies had a confident and safe role in the creation of media plans and ad production. Clients turned to their retained agencies year after year to set where and how the brands would spend their marketing budgets. For decades, relatively little changed with consumers' media consumption habits, so relatively little changed with respect to the way clients and ad agencies collaborated.

But over the past decade, ad agencies have been losing control of some of the services they traditionally have furnished for clients. One responsibility that some clients have been taking away from advertising agencies is media planning. Long the purview of ad agencies, brand marketers are beginning to grumble that their agencies may not be giving newer media their due diligence and may be inclined toward recommending media plans that earn the agencies the greatest fees.

For example, in 2007 Kimberly-Clark made waves by transitioning media strategy duties to Naked Communications, which specializes in "channel neutral" strategic planning. Naked's role is to work with K-C and its agencies to help identify the channels in which K-C's brands will invest. In a Brandweek article, a K-C representative notes, “Simply put, Naked Communications will help us and our agencies no longer take a ‘shotgun’ approach with our marketing programs by relying on a 30-second TV spot to reach consumers with our messages.”

(Full disclosure: The digital and experiential agency at which I work has Kimberly-Clark as a client, enjoys strong relationships with its agencies including Naked and JWT, and has a great deal of respect for the contributions all have made to K-C's success.)

The idea that ad agencies may be in an increasingly difficult situation came to mind when reading about this year's Super Bowl ads. Two of the most talked about TV ads came from minds far outside the walls of any ad agency. These days, it seems everyone is in the advertising business!

The ad that received the most media attention and won the top spot in USA Today's Ad Meter (for what that's worth) was Doritos' "Crystal Ball." The ad earned viewer consideration and laughter with genuine humor and the secret weapon of many viral videos--a painful groin shot. I liked this spot not just because it made me smile, but because it did so while putting the brand front and center. The consumer wishes for "free Doritos at the office today" and then makes his wish come true.



As you most likely know, this ad wasn't written by an agency Copywriter, storyboarded by an agency Creative Director, and shot by an agency Producer. Instead, it came from the minds of two unemployed but aspiring filmmakers. To give credit where credit is due, the UGC (User-Generated Content) campaign that motivated the two filmmakers to create and submit their ad was developed by Frito-Lay's ad agencies, but the point remains that the most experienced and capable agencies in the world had their top ideas and ads--the crème de la crème produced for the year's most watched television event--bested by a couple of amateur advertisers.

And to add insult to injury, the two guys created their Dorito's ad at a fraction of a fraction of the cost of a typical TV ad. The total cost to produce this ad was $2,000. The average production cost for professionals to create a 30-second spot? According to a recent AAAA survey, it's $361,000.

This wasn't the only non-traditional Super Bowl ad that received attention in the media. Another spot was Pepsi's Pepsuber ad. As noted in MediaPost, "Pepsi's agency Omnicom Group's TBWA/Chiat/Day had little if any involvement in the commercials. (They were) produced by 'SNL' executive producer Lorne Michaels." According to MediaBistro, Pepsi paid $3 million for the three special Pepsuber ads that ran the night before the Super Bowl during Saturday Night Live, one of which appeared during the big game on the following day.



This unusual deal is a taste of things to come. NBC entertainment co-chair Ben Silverman told TVGuide.com that NBC is in talks with other potential partners about "finding [similar] ways to use our entertainment vehicles to help their brands." According to PopMatters, "The need to find innovative new ways to make money has everyone rifling through everything they have on hand to avert disaster." Adds Lorne Michaels, "These are perilous times. I’ll do whatever is necessary to support the network."

With clients questioning the objectivity of agency media plans, amateurs obtaining tools and skills normally associated with professional graphic and video production, and entertainment companies and networks desperate for new sources of revenue, the outlook remains challenging for advertising agencies. They aren't going anywhere, of course, but as this year's crop of Super Bowl ads demonstrates, there's never been more pressure on agencies to produce results and keep ahead of the competition. It's an environment that is sure to yield continued changes in the ad agency and marketing world in the years to come.

I know it's a little late for a blog post about Super Bowl advertising. Most bloggers and media outlets did their Monday morning ad execing (the advertising equivalent of Monday morning quarterbacking) more than a week ago, but sometimes it takes a little time for the lessons to reveal themselves amid the noise and spin. This is the first of a two-part series on why this year's Super Bowl ads said more about the state of marketing than about the brands advertised.

As I read all the hype and attention of the Super Bowl ads, it seemed evident that the way consumers and the media evaluate advertising is all wrong. That, in and of itself, isn't really a problem, but when marketers and ad agencies start buying into the super wrong Super Bowl ad analysis, brands and the discipline of marketing suffer.

Like everyone else, I hunkered down to watch the big game as much to enjoy the ads as to see football. And like everyone else, I gathered around the metaphorical water cooler the following day to trade observations about the "best ads." This sort of attention and Word of Mouth (WOM) is exactly what marketers want when they invest in the most expensive ad time of the year, but what is this chatter worth to them? I liked the hilarious Doritos ads and praised their UGC (User-Generated Content) source, but I haven't had an urge to find a bag of the snacks; and I abhorred the offensive and meaningless GoDaddy's ads, yet I visited their site for a WHOIS search this past week.

The fact consumers evaluate and rate Super Bowl ads as if they're talking about competing sitcom pilots in a new TV season isn't lost on the news media, so they've jumped on the advertising-as-entertainment bandwagon. The USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter, which reports on "real-time consumer testing of how much (consumers) liked the ads as they aired," is tremendously popular. Check out the Quantcast chart below--through a hotly contested presidential election, traffic to USAToday.com was steady, but the week of the Super Bowl saw visits to the site rise by 300 to 400 percent!



Ad agencies hang on the USA Today Ad Meter results like Hollywood moguls awaiting opening weekend box office takes, and they use the outcome for bragging rights. Less than a week after the Super Bowl, Omnicom issued a press release announcing it had "captured seven of the top 10 spots, including five of the top six, in the Super Bowl Ad Meter conducted by USA Today."

I suppose one can't blame Omnicom for giving into the temptation to brag about these results, but is there really a reason to brag? It strikes me as being akin to a horse owner issuing a press release crowing that its horse was voted the prettiest in the Kentucky Derby field; that's great, but did the horse win the race?

Is Omnicom in the entertainment or the marketing business? Do their clients want popular, likable ads or persuasive, effective ads? If ad popularity is what Omnicom's clients wanted, then they are to be congratulated for achieving goals. We can surmise, however, that in this economy with profits plummeting and marketing budgets under extreme pressure, the objective of these expensive ads and exorbitant media buys was to increase purchase intent and sell more product, not to amuse viewers.

While likability is a great attribute for entertainment--for example, likable TV shows garner higher ratings and earn more ad dollars--how exactly does likability benefit advertisers? The logic is that a likable ad will stick in the brain, impart some positive emotional attributes to the brand, and be sought out, viewed, and shared online. Certainly in an age of ad skipping by DVR viewers, you can't fault marketers for wanting their ads seen, but likability is like a key to the door of consumer's attention--once you've opened that door, failing to walk in and leverage the attention you've earned is a squandered opportunity (and a very costly mistake).

Twenty-five years ago, a very likable ad for Wendy's became a pop culture phenomenon when Clara Peller demanded, "Where's the beef?" The ad became so popular that presidential candidate Walter Mondale famously used the catchphrase to ridicule his opponent at a debate, but this ad didn't stop at likability--it used that attention it earned to say something about Wendy's in relation to its competition. Consumers considered the quality of the beef and size of the burgers they ate, and the outcome was an increase in Wendy's market share. That's likability that matters!

Did any of the most popular Super Bowl ads change consumers' perception of the brands advertised? We don't know because the USA Today Ad Meter doesn't tell us, but there is evidence of how little likability matters in advertising.

Look at the bottom of the Ad Meter results--way, way at the bottom. Two of the bottom four Super Bowl ads were for Hyundai. One ad suggested Hyundai's competitors were jealous that the Hyundai Genesis was named the North American Car of the Year, and the second ad promoted the Hyundai Assurance program, which permits consumers to return their new car without penalty in the event of layoff or disability.

Those were some seriously unlikable ads, so clearly they failed, right? Not so fast. The International Herald Tribune, in an article entitled, "Hyundai grows by offering buyers value, assurance," notes that "Hyundai Motor Co.'s sales rose 14 percent last month, the envy of an industry that saw U.S. sales overall fall 37 percent from a year earlier."

So, who would you rather be? Budweiser with two of the top five most popular ads on the USA Today Ad Meter or Hyundai bucking the economic trends by increasing sales and profits in one of the hardest-hit industries by the recession? And which agency has earned the bigger bragging rights--the one with "seven of the top 10 spots" in the Ad Meter, or Goodby, Silverstein & Partners who is driving effective consideration for their Hyundai client?

It must be a terrible time to be in the television business. Consumer media habits are shifting and it must seem every day brings news of a new competitor or new challenge. Here are some of those news items from just the past couple of days:

• Xbox Live to Premiere Original Comedic Shorts: Remember the good old days when TV networks had a virtual monopoly on daily consumer entertainment? Nowadays, everyone is a competitor, including gaming consoles: Microsoft’s Xbox Live is set to premiere seven original comedic shorts this fall which have been produced by several high-profile talents from the horror movie world. Microsoft hopes to turn one or more of them into a series or movie franchise. The shorts "will be ad supported in some fashion."
  
  
• Radio Getting "Visual": This news items almost seems like a continuation of the last one. Radio now wants a piece of television's action by becoming more visual. CBS Radio has announced the launch of a new video platform for its radio station Web sites. The new platform gives 140 radio stations "the ability to create personalized branded video players to feature station content, such as music videos, artist interviews, live concert performances, breaking news and original programming, and allows stations to syndicate content or embed clips to be shared via social networking."
  
  
• Dramatic Transformation of Marketing and Media: In an interview with Strategy + Business, Booz & Company Partner Christopher Vollmer shares his thoughts on the "dramatic transformation of marketing and media." He notes that "in just the last few years, there’s been explosive growth in the amount of time consumers spend online, " and he predicts that "as people become more accustomed to dealing with media that’s on demand and better aimed at their interests and behaviors, they’re going to find that they want to spend more time in targeted media environments."
  
  Vollmer predicts continued migration to entertainment or information platforms where consumers choose how they interact with programming and content, such as video games, video on demand, and online media.
  
  
• Will the Product Placement Gravy Train be Derailed?: With consumers increasingly skipping ads, broadcasters have grown their revenue stream by collecting cash from marketers in exchange for their products getting into scripts and the hands of characters. Never mind that consumers find product placement increasingly annoying and distracting, this form of marketing has seen explosive growth: Advertisers spent $2.9 billion in 2007 to place their products in TV shows and movies, up 33.7% from the year before, and prime-time product placements on broadcast networks rose 39 percent in the first three months of this year, from the comparable period in 2007.
  
  All this growth was liable to draw attention, and now the FCC is opening an investigation into the use of undisclosed paid product placements in broadcast TV shows. Seeking to alert consumers when they are seeing paid advertising, several proposals are being consider. Some are pretty minor, such as increasing the font used to disclose product placement during shows' credits, but some consumer groups are looking for far more, such as a crawl in the middle of shows to disclose when paid product placement is on screen.
  
  
• Daily Video Entertainment in 2013 Will Be Less Than 50% Traditional TV: According to the Multiplatform Video Report released by Solutions Research Group, television viewing is projected to remain stable between now and 2013 in terms of hours but will drop as a percentage of the time consumers spend with video entertainment. This is because consumers will continue to increase their usage of PC and mobile video while TV viewing will remain stagnant. TV's share of the total video entertainment pie is projected to shrink from 63.9% today to 47.1% by 2013.
  
  And even though the hours spent with TV will remain constant, the report predicts that "the ratio of 'linear' to 'time-shifted' programming will continue to change in favor of time-shifting," which means (not surprisingly) even more opportunities for consumers to zap ads on broadcast television.

It will be interesting to see what becomes of free network television in the years to come. With consumers ever more in control of their media consumption, traditional TV will continue to get squeezed in relation to other more targeted, measurable, and consumer-welcomed forms of marketing.

Sometimes a press release can say one thing but mean another. Such is the case with this week's PR from CBS Interactive, which struggles mightily to persuade readers that online video is really, really good for traditional TV. It failed to convince me, but tucked discreetly at the end of the press release is a nugget of wisdom worth noting.

CBS Interactive very much wants to prove that the online streaming of television shows does not hurt but rather enhances the network's broadcast viewership. Says an executive of Magid Media Labs, the company that produced the study, "The results are clear: by making their programming available through the CBS Audience Network, CBS has expanded the reach and audience for its content without impacting their traditional television viewership." After reviewing the data summarized in the press release, I don't believe this conclusion is clear at all.

For example, the press release proclaims that "35% of the online video-watching audience say(s) they are now more likely to watch CBS programming on television because they connected with the shows online." Doesn't this mean that the vast majority--the remaining 65%--indicated they are no more likely and perhaps even less likely to watch CBS as a result of online programming?

Even if the survey found what Magid Media Labs says it found, what does this mean for the future? If the online distribution of television shows doesn't impact broadcast viewership in 2008, can we assume this will be the case in 2009 and beyond? I believe that would be an incorrect conclusion to make.

The impact of online TV upon traditional TV is limited by two factors at the current time. The first is broadband penetration; according to a Magna Global USA study, the average age of CBS viewers is 54, and the 2008 Pew Internet and American Life Project Survey indicates that just 23% of this age group has broadband access. This means that high-speed Internet access will grow rapidly for CBS viewers in the coming years and as it does, the corresponding increase in online viewing will have a significant impact on traditional TV viewing habits.

The second factor that today prevents online shows from sapping broadcast viewership is the limited selection of programming CBS makes available on the Internet. Currently, CBS.com has no full episodes of hit sitcom "Two and a Half Men," one full episode of "Rules of Engagement," and just two full episodes of "CSI," the network's top-rated TV show. As CBS increases their online selection and offers more complete seasons of programming, consumers will be drawn away from broadcast television and toward the always-on, always-available benefits of online television.

The discussion about whether or not online programming impacts traditional viewership is not the most interesting part of the CBS Interactive press release. Hidden in the final paragraph is this: "68 percent of respondents said that the CBS Audience Network had the 'right amount' of advertising on the site. Overall, 50 percent of respondents correctly recalled the brand of an ad they saw during their viewing experience."

This study shows that decreasing the number of ads (as is done on CBS.com and every other TV network site) improves the value of the brand impression, but this message seems to be falling on deaf ears. Network television has continued to increase ad time and decrease content time in an effort to improve revenues, which are derived from brands seeking to reach and gain affinity with viewers. But the growth in ad time hasn't produced improved brand opportunities; it's increased the clutter and caused consumers to flock to ad-zapping DVRs.

It's easy to see why consumers weary of CBS's advertising overload would express appreciation for CBS Interactive's online ad approach. An episode of "How I Met Your Mother" runs 30 minutes on network television, of which eight minutes is advertising; over 25% of the sitcom's 30-minute running time consists of ads. This same episode lasts just 23:50 if viewed online, which means that a mere 6% of the consumers' time is dedicated to viewing ads.

That fact that over two-thirds of consumers find online TV's less intrusive advertising appropriate is no surprise at all. Nor is it really a surprise that fewer ads means more attention and better recall of the brands advertised. The real surprise is why--when faced with the potential for a shrinking audience, shifts in consumer's leisure habits, growing discontent about ad saturation, and diminished ad reach due to DVRs--networks don't take a page from online TV's success and decrease ad time. Fewer ads can mean more consumer attention, happier consumers, increased ratings, and just possibly improved ad rates.

Does your brand have what it takes? Is it brave enough? Tough enough? Have the fortitude to go the distance? Because if your brand is not ready to run with the big dogs, it's better off staying on the porch where it's safe.

Sound like I'm picking a fight with your brand? I'm not, but you can rest assured someone will once you invite consumers to submit their ideas, words, videos, and images via a User-Generated Content (UGC) marketing program.

UGC programs have been the rage for a couple of years now, and some marketers are questioning if they've run their course. My opinion is that UGC is a fine way to involve consumers in the brand, provided you know your audience, define your goals, and craft the appropriate program.

But first it is vital to evaluate if UGC is appropriate for your brand, because not every brand is suited for a consumer-generated media program. Some important questions marketers should consider before proceeding with a UGC effort include:

• Is my brand in a low- or high-engagement category? Not every brand category can inspire consumers to dedicate time to creating an ad, a testimonial, a video, or other content.
  
  Some categories are so high-engagement and brands so beloved that people will write tributes on their blogs and shoot video love poems to the brand, even without a formal UGC program promising a chance for fame and fortune. Search for Disney on YouTube and you'll find (in addition to pirated content) videos that Disney fans were inspired to create, such as a music video of Disney love scenes set to Avril Lavigne's "Keep Holding On," artfully-edited scenes of special Disney moments set to the lovely "When You Wish Upon a Star," consumer-captured video of Disneyland's Main Street Electric Parade, and a guest's POV movie of the Magic Kingdom's Splash Mountain attraction.
  
  Low-engagement categories that involve infrequent purchases, small dollar amounts, or utility functionality are difficult--but not impossible--from which to launch a UGC campaign. If your brand is in a low-engagement category, UGC programs focused on the brand may encourage little interest (and there is nothing better than a low-activity UGC campaign to make evident how little love your brand engenders). Instead, a strategy that overcomes the low engagement is to focus not on the brand but on the benefits of the entire category; for instance, a tire manufacturer may encourage consumers to create videos expressing the value of the people whose lives are riding on those tires or how tires saved their lives in emergency situations.
  
  
• Do consumers understand my brand? If you haven't crafted a strong brand position with consumers, UGC programs can be a disaster.
  
  The more consumers understand what your brand is about, its world view, its target audience, and its personality, the better and more appropriate you can expect User-Generated Content to be. If you have a strong brand, have fun with your UGC campaign!
  
  If you don't, then leaving it to consumers to interpret the brand will likely be painful. Not only will the content submitted by consumers miss the mark, but the wild breadth of brand views will only make it evident that the brand stands for little in the minds of consumers. If research indicates consumer perceptions don't match the brand's, then promotion strategies other than UGC programs are recommended.
  
  
• Am I willing to give up control of my brand? You need not set your brand free to go wherever consumers care to take it--there are ways to put guardrails around a UGC effort--but any time you invite consumers to reinterpret your brand or share their perceptions of your product, you have to expect they'll go in strange and unexpected directions.
  
  McDonald's recently sponsored a Big Mac jingle contest on MySpace and may have gotten much more than they anticipated when a former felon made the list of five finalists, and that's not the worst of it--according to TechCrunch, he served 12 years in prison for holding up a McDonald's! The finalists were chosen by judges, so either McDonald's failed to vet the finalists or chose Tamien Bain's entry as a publicity stunt. (Or maybe they just figured he'd served his time, repaid his debt to society, and deserved a second chance.)
  
  
• Am I really willing to let consumers plagiarize, repurpose, and alter my carefully-protected brand assets? Brands typically spend a great deal of time and effort protecting their intellectual property (IP) by threatening anyone who repurposes logos and other trademarks. Is your brand ready to do the exact opposite and encourage people to tinker with your IP?
  
  Nick Haley, an 18-year-old student, took copyrighted Apple iPhone videos and remixed his own television ad. Apple lawyers might've fallen on him like a ton of bricks; instead, Apple polished Nick's ad and used it on broadcast television. Apple not only got a rocking commercial from their collaboration with Nick, but they benefited from positive press for accepting Nick's well-intentioned piracy of Apple's IP.
  
  
• Am I willing to spend to support the effort? If a UGC campaign falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make it sound? Yes it does--the sound of failure is resounding!
  
  One of the dangers of UGC programs is that marketers perceive them as inexpensive. The logic goes something like this: "Rather than produce a $200,000 TV ad and spend $1 million on media, let's offer $25,000 for the best consumer-produced ad and let them post it to YouTube. We'll save seven figures!"
  
  But it's not nearly that simple. Just look at one of the most well-known examples of UGC to date: Dorito's challenged consumers to produce their own ads, with the winner debuting on the Super Bowl. According to a New York Times article entitled, "The High Price of Free Ads," the brand spent $1.3 million in October to promote the campaign, awarded $50,000 to winners, invested another $8 million in advertising in February to show the winning ads, and dedicated untold hours and costs to strategy, planning, PR, monitoring, and selecting the winners out of the 1,020 submissions.
  
  For UGC campaigns, the award money is a fraction of the total budget needed. Failure to promote and support the program can result in poor participation, embarrassing content, and very disappointing results.
  
  
• Can my brand take criticism? Perhaps no question is more important than this one. Every brand has detractors, and UGC campaigns tend to bring them out of the woodwork. It's important for marketers to carefully define the rules for consumer-generated content programs and to be sure consumers--and the brand--live with them.
  
  There's danger in putting too many rules in place; doing so can make your brand seem unconfident, paranoid, and secretive, which likely aren't the sorts of attributes you want to promote with your UGC program. And if you try to aggressively control the program by deleting content critical of your brand, the repression of consumer submissions can spark consumer criticism, bad PR, and still fail when rejected content appears on file-sharing sites and blogs. In the age of social media, you cannot prevent consumers from saying what they want, so if you're unwilling to live with consumers' praise and criticism, it may be that UGC isn't right for your brand.
  
  But, if your brand is willing to let the dissenting voices be heard, it can appear strong and confident in the face of minority disapproval. Chevy sponsored a user-generated video campaign for its SUV, the Tahoe. Some consumers took the opportunity to submit videos critical of the product and its impact on the environment. GM allowed the content, didn't remove the critical videos, and instead engaged consumers on their blog in an effort to promote the Tahoe's fuel efficiency.
  
  I'm sure Chevy didn't win over any of their critics with the blog response, but neither did the brand give them fuel for the fire by deleting the videos and trying to stifle the criticism. Some observers criticized GM for not setting stricter rules or being slow to react, but others have noted Chevy's confident and transparent response to the criticism resulted in the Tahoe selling more and the brand generating more "street cred."

User-Generated content is perfectly suited for an age of growing consumer empowerment, but marketers must be careful not to proceed without great caution, careful planning, an appropriate media plan and budget, and an honest assessment of whether the brand is really ready for the unfiltered voice of the consumer.

The earth is shifting under the feet of people in Hollywood (and New York and everywhere else where big media and marketing are found). No, it's not an earthquake; it's an adquake.

The television industry is being shaken by rapid changes in technology, consumer tastes, and demographics. For decades, the role of television in the marketing environment was assured--to reach a large audience with a branded message that appealed to the emotions, you used television. The combination of universal reach, barriers to entry for competing networks and media, and video delivery assured television of its lucrative place and caused the media mix to change very little for many years.

But in recent months, we've seen a series of news reports that validate what we already know: Television is losing viewers and thus its confident place atop the marketing portfolio.

In February came news of a new IDC study of consumer online behavior found that the Internet is the medium on which online users spend the most time (32.7 hours/week), almost twice as much time as spent watching television (16.4 hours).

In April, Microsoft announced it would take advantage of the Internet's growing power to deliver video to broadband-connected consumers and offer its own original slate of programming via its Web properties. Also in April, the New York Times featured an article about Naked Communications, a new type of agency that helps brands determine their appropriate media mix; one brand executive praised Naked's "media agnostic" mindset and said it was a fresh approach to "not presume that you have to have a 30-second TV spot.”

In May, Forrester released a report that showed that consumers ages 18 to 27 are spending less time with television and more time online. The reported showed that in just three years, time spent using the Internet has risen 80% while time watching TV is down 15% among this demographic.

In June, MediaPost shares a study from Ipsos MediaCT revealing that among those who have streamed or downloaded video content, which is 52% of Americans age 12 and older, the share of video viewed on television dropped while the video viewed online had grown from 11% to 19% in just one year. The study found that consumers age 12 to 17 view just 55% of their video on TV and 24% on a computer. Also in June came a report from Magna Global USA that noted that even though just 25% of TV homes have a DVR, "the current impact of DVR viewing on ratings is twice as high as the impact of VCRs when they were in 90 percent of TV homes." What this means is that ad-zapping DVRs already account for 9 percent of the Big Five networks’ TV ratings, and 15 percent of viewing by adults 18-49.

The adquake continues this month with a study released by Magna Global that demonstrates TV is no longer within its own target demographic. Television has long bragged about its ability to reach the 18-to-49-year-old demo, but "the five broadcast nets' average live median age (in other words, not including delayed DVR viewing) was 50 last season". (The median age for U.S. households is 38.) Such is the impact of gaming, the Internet, cable, and DVRs, that network television is losing its ability to reach its traditional core audience.

The adquake is already being felt in the network's pocketbook. The big network's ad revenue fell two percent in 2007 while all ad spending was up slightly (0.2 percent). Internet ad spending was up 15.9 percent last year, but the shift in media spend is nowhere near complete. Despite the demographic and TV viewing changes noted above, ad spending on network television was 135% greater than on the Internet, and the ad revenue for all television was almost seven times that of the Internet.

The adquake presents real challenges for marketers. As has been noted on this blog, online display advertising isn't much of an answer for marketers seeking to shift dollars out of TV advertising. Online ads are seen as untrustworthy, annoying, and ignorable; plus, ad blocking software threatens to decrease ad viewership on the Internet in the same way the DVR is used to screens ads by those who time-shift their TV.

Despite the challenges both online and on television, I think these are exciting times for marketers. The old way of marketing had become stale and--let's face it--boring. There were few challenges to advertising on TV and in print; with demographics, media outlets, and technology stagnant, the focus was entirely on the message and not the medium. There was a belief back when I started in marketing that a brand only needed to find the right tagline to create relevance to an audience.

But today, marketing is so much broader and deeper than it was 20 year ago. Rather than focusing on just the graphic, headline, or copy, we marketers have become as creative as film makers, theme park designers, and game developers. Successful campaigns aren't simply about finding the right ad to place in the same old spots; it's about finding the right combination of strategy and experiences to engage consumers in fun, interactive, and fascinating ways.

We've gone experiential, and its a change to be embraced! The adquake will continue for years to come--probably for our entire careers--as mobile, social, and other media we cannot yet imagine change consumer media habits, expectations, and relations to brands. The marketers who succeed will be the ones who learn to shift as quickly as the adquake changes the world around us.

According to a Mediaweek article, DVR viewership continues to rise, and the impact is quite startling. Magna Global USA released data on DVR usage and ratings from the past TV season. It found that even though just 25% of TV homes have a DVR, "the current impact of DVR viewing on ratings is twice as high as the impact of VCRs when they were in 90 percent of TV homes." What this means is that DVRs account for 9 percent of the Big Five networks’ TV ratings, and 15 percent of viewing by adults 18-49.

Of course, the growth of DVRs and their impact on television viewing will only accelerate. Magna is projecting that in just four years, nearly 25 percent of all prime-time viewing on the broadcast networks among adults 18-49 will be time-shifted.

While the report doesn't address the impact of DVRs upon ad viewing, I think we can all guess how time-shifting alters consumers' exposure to TV ads. What will happen in 2012 when key consumer demographic groups are zapping 25% of marketers' TV ads? And what about online TV viewing? The Magna report didn't consider online viewing of prime-time shows, which is yet another way that technology is chipping away at television's viewership, ratings, and ad dollars. I watched two of this season's 14 episodes of "Lost" on ABC.com, and I actually found the experience more pleasant than on broadcast television, with much briefer commercial interruptions.

Why are consumers shifting away from live TV and towards DVRs and online TV? Part of it is an issue of control, but I also believe it is because consumers increasingly perceive the TV ad channel as being unwelcome, intrusive, and valueless. Yes, I know the ads pay for the free content, but consumers are being so bombarded with advertising that they no longer are able to perceive value in television as an advertising medium.

It doesn't help that networks keep cramming more and more ads into their programming. According to Wikipedia, in the 1960s a typical hour-long show would run for 51 minutes excluding advertisements. Today, a similar program would only be 42 minutes long. The incessant creep toward less entertainment and more ads is continuing today; network prime-time commercial time in 2006 rose 2.4% to 5,429 minutes. Why, in the face of a growing consumer revolt against ads, the networks would decide the appropriate response is more advertising is the kind of question better left to psychologists and philosophers.

TV networks might find a way to reverse or at least slow consumers' avoidance of TV ads by seeking to make TV advertising more appealing and welcome. This could be done by decreasing the number of ads, increasing content time, raising ad rates, providing a better experience to consumers, and allowing brands to cut through the clutter with fewer interruptions and greater sponsorship and affiliation with particular programming.

As discussed on this blog in a post about the Experiential Marketing Continuum, consumers are exerting more power and influence in the channels available to marketers, so marketers must consider ways to pull consumers with value-added marketing rather than alienate consumers with intrusive and unwelcome ad tactics. It's easy to divine the channels consumers find unwelcome--these are the channels in which consumers strive to eliminate or filter ads, even if it means paying to avoid advertising.

If TV networks do nothing--or worse yet, crush still more ads into prime time--an upheaval in the marketing and entertainment space could occur as soon as within 5 to 10 years (or roughly as many years as "American Idol" has been on the air). I'm not a sufficient futurist to know what this will mean to free television, but I suspect ABC, NBC, CBS, and other free networks will become paid channels a la HBO (which has, of course, offered some of the most buzz-worthy and critically-praised original series of the past decade). Since Americans are already accustomed to paying extra for cable or satellite access, and since they're accepting the price of DVR service as a cost of TV enjoyment, this shift may be less earth shattering than it seems at first glance.

If decreasing ad time sounds unrealistic, check out how advertising is working online on sites such as ABC.com and Hulu.com--the number of ad interruptions are the same, but each is shorter. I haven't seen any data on viewership, skipping, or perception of advertising within Web-based TV yet, so all I can do is share my own perceptions. For example, because of the briefness of the interruptions, I've found that I have no objection to the fact the ads cannot be skipped online. And, either by accident or in an act of brilliant foresight, the ad interruptions in online shows are so short that consumers can't use the time to get up and go to the bathroom or grab a bite in the kitchen, so each ad is actually viewed in its entirety.

No matter what happens to free TV and television advertising, marketers must recognize how weary consumers are becoming of our advertising-saturated society. According to a 2004 Yankelovich Partners poll, 65% of Americans say they are "constantly bombarded with too much" advertising and 61% think the quantity of advertising and marketing they are exposed to "is out of control." The way to overcome this backlash is to focus on the sorts of channels and tactics that encourage acceptance within consumers.

In the new, consumer-controlled marketing world, those of us in the industry need to find ways to not simply avoid annoying consumers but to get them to seek us out. The way to do so is to shift our marketing mix to more welcome and desired ad media and marketing strategies. Experimenting with shorter or fewer ads is one way to make the television medium more welcoming to consumers, but the biggest bang for the buck will come from marketers exploring newer and more valuable (to consumers) marketing channels.

Here are some interesting XM and online marketing news items and links for your perusal:

• Mobile Browsing Report: Opera is sharing what it knows about mobile browsing: 2.9 billion pages in May; US demographic is 80.6% male; and almost half of users over 28 years old. Check out more at http://www.opera.com/mobile_report/2008/05/
  
  BTW, if you have a WinMobile phone and aren't using Opera Mini to browse the Web, you have to download the free browser!
  
  
• Fake Ad Wins at Cannes and Annoys the Brand Advertised: This is the weirdest marketing news I've heard in quite some time. According to Creative Cooler, "the ad world is chattering away about the JC Penney 'Speed Dressing' win at Cannes last week. The chatter isn't just about how this amusing spot won a Bronze Lion, but that the spot itself is a fake. JC Penney says it had nothing to do with it and is up in arms about the spot ruining the company's wholesome image." (Considering JCP's financial performance as of late, perhaps a little shakeup is in order. One blogger, commenting on this news, started his post with "JC Penney? They're still around?")
  

MediaPost shares a study from Ipsos MediaCT that shouldn't surprise us. It demonstrates that the share of video consumed on TV is decreasing and on computers it is rising.

Considering that as recently as five years ago, the percentage of video viewed on either the television or the movie theater screen was probably 99%, the current stats are pretty striking. Among those who have streamed or downloaded video content, which is 52% of Americans age 12 and older, the share of video viewed online has grown from 11% to 19% in just one year.

And of course, the portion of video viewed on a computer monitor increases as age decreases--consumers age 12 to 17 view just 55% of their video on TV and 24% on a computer. While this isn't particularly unexpected, what I found surprising is how much online video is being consumed by older Americans. If you think those 55 and older are glued to their TVs and only use their PCs to check email, you'll be surprised to learn that among this cohort, almost one of every five hours of video viewing occurs on a computer.

This is just further evidence that marketers are going to need to shift more of their marketing dollars online. This will take some creativity and a willingness to experiment, since online video advertising is not yet standardized.

As discussed here last week, online video advertising is not likely to take the form of 30- and 60-second spots, an ad format that is being rejected by consumers on television and won't be any more welcome online. ABC.com and Hulu are experimenting with movies and TV shows that are interrupted just as frequently as on television, but with substantially fewer and shorter ads. If this ad approach catches on--and I think it will--this could mean that video advertising inventory (both TV and online combined) could shrink in the coming years.

This sounds like a problem for marketers, but there is a trade off--consumers seem to be accepting of ads they cannot skip provided those ads are kept brief. And unlike on TV, online video ads can entice consumers to click through to learn more, so the right ad can create immediate and deeper engagement than is possible on TV.

If you care to learn more about the percentage of video consumers view on TV and PCs (not to mention portable DVD players, cell phones, and DVD players) visit MediaPost's Research Brief.

It's no secret that consumers are spending less time with traditional media, and it's certainly no surprise that consumers--particularly younger ones--dedicate a good chunk of their lives interacting with digital media. But sometimes you see the cold, hard data confirming what everyone "knows," and it's startling.

The data I found expected yet still somehow surprising came from Forrester's report, "Building Gen Y’s Multichannel Media Profile." Is it flabbergasting to find that consumers ages 18 to 27 are spending less time with television and more time online? Of course not, but the speed and breadth at which the changes are continuing to occur are striking.

Consumer leisure activities tend to change very slowly over time, unless some important societal factor intervenes, such as during times of war. But there's been no seismic societal changes over the past four years--the Internet is no longer new, and the biggest digital changes we've seen since 2004 are the growth of broadband, a wider adoption of digital music, and increases in the capabilities of Internet-enabled cell phones. (Yes, I know we're in a time of war, but let's not not get started on how little attention this war gets or how little sacrifice it is demanding from the American public, okay?)

But with just minor changes in the online and media landscape, there's been a significant shift in the media consumption of Gen Yers in the past three years. Time spent using the Internet has risen 80% while time spent listening to the radio has fallen 26% and time watching TV is down 15%. Those are profound changes in just 36 months.

Of course, it's not difficult to understand why this is happening. The younger Gen Yers don't remember a time before the Internet existed and have grown up with email, the Web, chat rooms, e-commerce, and online games. And even for the oldest of the Gen Y generation, the Internet was a vital part of their high school and college experience.

Still, it's interesting to note that the digital media habits of this group are still evolving. They aren't simply taking consistent online habits with them as they age; they're continuing to adopt to a new lifestyle of "living online." Three years ago, they spent 60% more time watching TV than being online, and in 2007 this demographic dedicated 1.6 more hours to their Internet time than to television.

The marketing implications of this continued shift away from traditional media and toward digital media are significant, and made even more so by the fact Gen Y's income will skyrocket in the coming years. According to eMarketer, Gen Y's annual income will rise from $1.89 trillion to $3.48 trillion in the next ten years, growing to near Gen X's income ($4.2 trillion in 2017) and eclipsing Boomer's ($2.96 trillion).

What happens when a large group of consumers see swift increases in discretionary income and rapid changes in their media habits? Marketers' worlds change very, very quickly.

We already know that marketing budgets have been shifting away from print, TV, and radio towards online tactics, but it's apparent this shift is just getting started. With the ROI for display and search advertising already getting squeezed by increasing demand and cost (and consumer indifference), and with Social Media continuing to prove an advertising challenge, the ways in which marketers can invest their budgets in online media are going to continue to change and get ever more creative (and experiential).

The marketing challenge of the next few years won't primarily be one of how to allocate dollars to different online ad types (search versus display; banners versus skyscrapers; ad network A or B), but instead will be how to engage consumers and provide real value. It will become even less about campaigns and more about consistent relationship building. How a brand looks will be far less important than how it acts. What you say won't matter; who you are will.

These years will be heady times for marketers in organizations that are marketing centric and consumer focused where being transparent, agile, open to change, honest, confident, and willing to experiment and take risks is a way of life. For everyone else--companies that focus on campaigns and advertising and not consumer experiences; that believe they can be one thing but brand themselves another; that strive for control; and that lack respect for and trust in their consumer--the next five to ten years will be confusing and threatening.

Within a few years, Gen Y will be spending twice as much time online as they do with television. They'll be learning more about brands from each other than from your advertising. Will you be part of the conversation and creating the sorts of experiences that will get consumers saying positive things about your brand? Or will be more concerned about whether you get better clickthrough from a 468-x-60 or a 120-x-600 ad unit?