All day I was excited for one of my favorite shows, LOST, to air tonight. Come 9PM, I found myself doing something else and chose to not watch. Was this disheartening? Stressful? No, on the contrary, it’s the norm nowadays. Rather then an entire hour sitting on the couch, I can wait until the show is online for viewing and view from my laptop, while doing other things, with only a few 30 second commercial breaks. It’ll save 15 minutes, and I can watch on the same screen as I write, e-mail, chat, surf, etc.

Even more common, people are simply using their DVRs or “Tivoing” (much how Googling is synonymous with Searching) to fast forward through commercials and just watch the show. With shows and television stations dependent on an advertising income, there still isn’t a solid solution to reach audiences with these products and services. As more people fast forward through shows, or are only subject to a few short commercials online (which can easily be minimized/muted) how do companies/agencies reach their audiences?

I think a trend that is increasing exponentially is in-show product placement. Rather then your favorite show detective answering his cell phone, he is now answering a Verizon Palm Pre Pro. Instead of a group of friends discussing their dramatic lives at a generic coffee shop, they’re sipping Frappachinos at Starbucks.

It requires a high wire act of writing and commercialism. You want to have the product presented positively to the audience, but you don’t want it to be so blatant that the viewer is taken out of the story or supersedes the realistic dialogue. For example, the NBC show Heroes had short scenes from a side-story during broadcasts where the primary focus was the use of a Sprint Phone. I felt it was over the top and embarrassing to watch. It created a negative feeling towards the product and the show.

Another suggestion with advertisements is to shorten the commercial breaks during shows. We all know the attention span of people are very short, which is why individual commercials are only 30 seconds or so long. However, on any given break you view 3-5 spots that just meld together to one large delay of your entertainment. Often times people use these moments to leave the room to get a beverage, or use the restroom. So the viewers aren’t even there. A better method would be to have shorter full-screen breaks (only 1 or 2 spots) at the current “hot times” (:15, :30, :45, :60 etc) and then during the show have relevant advertising at the bottom of the screen. Noticeable but not invasive.  Combine that with the product placement and your Tivo (which already requires an internet connection) and you could see your favorite character on screen, pause the show and be able to immediately go online with your remote to purchase their outfit, cell phone, car, etc.

Go further and you can post/discuss these products on your favorite Twitter, Facebook, Digg, social sharing website. Still, all from your couch, from your remote (or an advanced option with keyboard), and it will be mutually beneficial to the company.

Instant access, encourage spontaneous purchases and with the cutting down of commercial breaks you will have more airtime on networks to fill with additional shows, more local programming, or any other revenue creating streams they can think of.

We live in an “everything, all the time, instantly” type world now. The idea of interrupting entertainment to suggest products is an old and clunky method. It must evolve to work as a team with network programming rather then just the bumbling sidekick.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 11:47 pm and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.