• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, June 7, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO--Marketers have already begun an "exodus" from television that will lead, "obviously and inevitably," to more ad dollars spent online, Bob Garfield said Monday at OMMA West here.

And, he said, the online world isn't prepared.

"The collapse of the old marketing model will unleash vast forces, and it will be coming at you," Garfield, an editor-at-large at Advertising Age, told the audience at a keynote address. "The marketing world isn't ready yet. The agency world isn't ready yet. Hollywood isn't ready yet. The online universe certainly isn't ready yet."

In a 45-minute presentation, "The Chaos Scenario: What happens if the old media/marketing model collapses before the new model is built?" Garfield drew from a 5,000-word essay he authored for the April 4 edition of Advertising Age, in which he predicted that in the year 2020, "over-the-air network TV is gone," that the upfront market will be an "exhibit in the Smithsonian," and the Super Bowl will have "survived as the No. 1 pay-per-view event."

Even in the present, he said, the traditional TV-based marketing model is in dire straits. In addition to audience fragmentation--thanks to a myriad of cable channels, the Web, video games, podcasting, and other diversions--TiVos and DVRs not only enable ad-skipping, but also make it harder for the networks to count on viewers watching an entire evening's lineup.

The natural consequence of increasing fragmentation and ad-skipping on television will be for TV ad budgets to transfer to online. But, Garfield said, far too many obstacles exist for the migration to happen quickly or cleanly. "There's nothing especially orderly about the new media's new world order," he said. In fact, he said, the best metaphor for the future of media spending might be Yugoslavia--the former country left splintered and in shambles after its federal government collapsed.

He predicted that the challenges will include a dearth of inventory, with publishers unable to create content fast enough; technological obstacles to transferring high-quality video online and to broadband penetration; and consumer resistance.

Consumers, he said, have been conditioned to despise online ads, thanks to spam, pop-ups, intrusive rich media, and search ads that can only be avoided by scrolling.

He added that consumers also must adopt broadband more completely before the Web can effectively replace television. "One thing you can say about television: It's got 100 percent penetration," he said. Currently, broadband is expected to reach 50 percent of all households by the year 2007.

Garfield also stressed that online content still needs to be created, and that it's not yet clear where the money for this endeavor will come from--especially because there's no Web equivalent to television's "upfront market" that can finance programs before they're available to consumers.