Roy, very true about humongous amounts of waste. The problem is again the media. They want TV because they are not getting the response and notoriety on line even when the targeting is better. There is something terribly wrong with the entire process.

Agree w/ Douglas 100%. Though Microsoft's phone UI and Apple products were noticeable. (Do boiled peanuts count?) Oh - and gray is the new black - everywhere.

Also, the US is one of the, if not the only, country which does not support its Olympic athletes. Nothing is free.

1. I just looked through 93, yes 93, travel company websites for a trip I would like to take next fall. Down to 3-5 to get info since none of them have what I want which is not just thrown like an object into a tour group. Have been with some great groups before, so I know what I seek that is not that complicated. 2. As a member of Marriott, I alway look there first when I take an individual trip. The chain has merited a first look from the times I have stayed there. Many times, they do not have the hotel in the area or a hotel within reason. Example, going for 2 weeks in a major international city and their hotel is about $100 more per night for a comparable non-Marriott hotel. And their "local perks" are not worth the extra money they charge, sometimes worth nothing.

Increasingly, Boomers are not partnered. It is such a turn off when you see spots, especially when you may be interested in more information, saying this is for couples only. Travel, in particular, is very guilty of this.

Sorry guys, there was an editor change of my article that you might have caught: This section: " You might buy a hot dog from 7-Eleven and also buy a Gatorade and a lottery ticket, but the reality of you buying a hotdog on your next visit, or any visit, is likely zero. ".. Should read: You might buy a bottle of Gatorade and a lottery ticket from 7'11 and based on correlation you might have a high probability of buying a hotdog on your next visit. When in fact there is "0" chance of my buying a hotdog on any trip.

Approaching Pontiac, MI at 35,000 feets and 700 miles per hour. Comments upon landing, based on my development of NBC's Olympic Programming & Sponsorship Philosohy for the 1990's & beyond! Check "The New Yorker" from the Summer of 1996. David Remick understood most clearly what Dick Ebersol & I had done and we're doing for the benefit of The Games & The U.S. TV Audience. NBC's long IOC association is built on more than money. Citius. Altius. Fortius. And Harvard Business School's Renowned Marketing Communications Professor Stephen Greyser concurs!

Hmmm? One out of four 18-34-year-olds are "unreachable via conventional TV". Really? I wonder where that finding came from?

Great observations, Ed. I often wonder if the the "ads suck" idea isn't most aggressively promoted by...advertising folks. Your research fits nicely with my experience. And, in the Hub research, I'm also quite cautious. Because investment money funds research that finds things to benefit that investment money. Hub stands to gain from this finding (at least given the positioning of the company on their website). That said, watched some VOD over the weekend with ads. They would have been fine if they had been real ads. Instead, the same ad repeated 5 or 6 times and 99% of the ads were for the station behind the program (SyFy). So maybe the finding here is that most consumers hate ads that are meaningless. Gee. What a surprise...

Good article, a little short though.

I'm with Carlos and your response, Paolo and thank you both! But there's more to this. The thinking in your piece is all true but misses vital point: what the devil is the story you're telling? If that were the prime consideration—if story were the transactional basis of social interactivity (which it is)—then influencers would be measured well beyond 'share': you'd want/have contextual metrics to vet how those influencers *actually advanced the story*—added value to the story and *then* shared it such that something actually happened. All else is passive: that alone is an active measure of how a brand story operatively influences. Reach means nothing if people do nothing: the real game is to tell stories that actually incite folks to *do something.* Engagement is the necessary condition (to pull Aristotle into the fray): action is the sufficient. Me, I'm thinking that a revolution in data frameworks (and likely terminology as a precondition to building them) is what's called for. I'm doing my bit: I'm building a context engine to figure out how emergent story actually networks by vetting where the story's likely to go next. Thanks so much for raising this...

"I feel like there should be no judgment for not doing something that is not the norm for society." Did AZ State fire all its professors?

Great read, interesting too how different ethnicities have different viewing stats.

It wouldn't be so bad if Facebook's Ad Platform functioned half as good as Google's. Facebook targeting is a joke. You try to attract law firms to like your page for instance and you end up getting convicted felons. EMail Marketing is back... and free.

Doug, I did a study of about 15000 adults a a dozen years or so ago which offered some insights on ad receptives versus ad haters.At the outset, we asked our respondents a lot of questions about their mindsets, including attitudes towards ads, generally. As is typical in such research, about 15-20% of the sample claimed that they found ads to be dishonest, worthless, stupid, etc and gave every indication that they paid no attention to them, while another segment--roughly 15%--- felt that ads were often or usually amusing, informative, helpful, etc. The rest of the sample was arrayed in between. The questionnaire then moved on to TV program viewing, other media usage, product purchase and other matters. Finally, we closed with a list of about 500 heavily advertised brands, grouped by product class, and asked our respondents whether they had seen any ads for each brand in the past month---"yes" or "no". Not surprisingly, the results for ad likers were extremely high----often exceeding the 70% mark and hitting highs in the low 90s. But the ad haters, who, one might assume zapped every TV commercial they encountered, displayed a surprising degree of familiarity with the ad campaigns. Typically, 35-45% of them recalled seeing a brand's ad campaign with highs in the low 70s. How could this be if they really avoided every ad every time they had an opportunity to see one?

This was and still is true for most of the industry. However no longer true for our customers who are getting consistent viewability percentages north of 70% using Open RTB. However I didn't realize that private deals are still falling short of 70%. It reminds me of the old saying about putting lipstick on a pig.

Maarten, while I agree with many of your points, I think you are confusing "TV" with the broadcast TV networks, who are, indeed losing share of audience thanks to the proliferation of channels. Cable, which accounts for the majority of TV consumption, is also "TV". So, when one looks at the big picture, there is no mass defection from TV at all. Actually, we are watching slightly more TV content than before; but our time with the medium is being split up differently. Also, while there is much to improve with "linear" TV in terms of audience targeting and the ways advertisers use the medium, It's not in trouble as a business proposition, either. As I keep pointing out, the broadcast TV networks, whose impending demise some people---not you, Maarten----seem fixated upon, are doing quite well in a business sense, as they rely on the huge profits they earn from the TV stations and cable channels they own, plus the recent influx of re-transmission revenues. Moreover, the upfront, far from being on its last legs, continues to be the linchpin of national TV time sales---including cable and syndication as well as the broadcast TV networks--- and extending well beyond the realm of primetime programming. So, please cheer up, Maarten, TV is not functioning as it once did, with three dominant players, fewer commercials, etc. but it has and will continue to adapt and, no doubt, prosper. Now, digital, that's a medium where they've got some real problems to solve.

Indeed! What Sue said! Apologies that it appears that I forgot to add the link to our boomer beauty survey. Echoes all of Sue's sentiments: http://boomboxnetwork.com/2012/12/baby-boomer-women-beauty-a-study/

Ed, I wholly agree that TV ads work and that half the people don't mind. Small solace to the other half, but I will readily admit to being amused by the AT&T campaign with Rob Lowe.

I just finished the season 3 binge and none of the placements were all that noticeable.

Why is it that I find these rants amusing? I shouldn't be giggling, should .

The new trend for commercials is having product ads revolve around animals and pets. At first I felt that this idea was foolish, having talking animals in a commercial was a little odd. The more that I saw this the more that I realized that marketing companies we realizing that consumers were responding to seeing their most beloved animals in a commercial, it brought a warm feeling to your heart. It was smart on TD Ameritrade’s part to put a lamb in this commercial, an animals that know as rather timid is being seen as having confidence can really appeal to a consumer. One thing that an ad agency probably has to be careful about though is choosing the right animal to appeal to a possible consumer, it is expensive and can often be difficult to work with animals, so marketers need to make sure that they picking the right animal or pet and have them conveying the right message in order to make the commercial a success.

Actually, i think the future belongs to the nimble web series. Yes, IKEA and Ford both tried, but they were brands getting into the content biz. There are indie web content producers who are making stories on a shoe string that people want to watch. (Full disclosure: the reason I know this is because my brother is one of these content producers.) What's more, they are building communities around these shows so that the fans--not focus groups--have say into what happens on the show. My bro's first 3 episodes were filmed on 0 budget--just favors. Episodes 4 - 6 were crowd funded. Because it's on youtube, he can look at the analytics of the viewers. Through comments on Facebook, he gets feedback of what's working. The viewer is more connected to the content and the characters and the producer has direct feedback that he can react quickly to because there aren't huge studio mechanisms involved. As a marketer, I think, there is a huge opportunity in this kind of content development for advertisers. Show is called Rogues of LA. You can see the first episode here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNyEW37IjQA His vision is to have a Rogues community in every major city--an opportunity for hyper local advertising and multi-layer brand advocates. IMHO, the future belongs to the nimble web series.