• by Jim Meskauskas , July 1, 2004

I don't watch as much TV as I used to as a kid. The pressures of work, the lure of entertainment outside of the home, the need to meet with friends in places larger than my tiny New York City apartment, all of these things contribute to my decrease in television usage.

Or so I thought.

When I really gave it some consideration, I realized that on any given day, if I have no plans and go home right after work, make myself a cucumber sandwich and sit down on the couch, I'll have three, sometimes even four hours of television viewing ahead of me.

Yeah, that's not as much as it was when I was a kid, but it still seems like a lot to me.

When I think about it, though, what has changed more than just the amount of time I spend watching TV is how I watch TV.

Instead of being glued to the tube, eyes glazed over as I stare into the blue-gray glow of the cultural campfire, I'm actually "grazing." With every commercial break, I'm clicking over to the picture-in-schedule screen of my digital cable TV Guide, scanning for something that can hold my attention at least for a few minutes while I wait for the ads to stop and I can return to the re-run of my beloved Law & Order.

I also have been known to get up off the couch though, and sit at my computer, reading email, checking out Andrew Sullivan's blog, or looking up stuff related to the show I was watching on the History Channel. All of these things are being done while I'm sort of half paying attention to the TV.

This means I miss a lot. I simply don't catch all the ads that air on the programs that I am ostensibly "watching." Because when it comes to multi-media usage, one does not really multi-task so much as "attention split."

Another reason I miss a lot of ads: I'm just not watching the right kinds of programming or cable networks that, when researched and purchased in accordance with the dominant and out-dated methods of mass marketing, agencies and advertisers think are best suited for reaching their audiences.

But those audiences, as is evidenced by the activities of an observed sample group (the most unreliable ever-myself), aren't really always there. They are only kind of there, with one hand on the remote and the other hand clicking a mouse.

Now, I've never been a big fan of re-purposing TV spots online, but sometimes there are ads that are just too entertaining to go unnoticed and unseen. Not to mention, if those ads don't have a national run, sometimes one just won't see them.

Recently, a friend was telling me about an advertisement for Starbucks. The ad sounded funny to me, but it is either not being run in this market, or I'm just so far outside the demo I won't ever see the ads. Or, which is most likely the case, I don't watch enough of the right kind of TV to ever catch it. So, I went looking for the ad. I started, sensibly enough, on the Starbucks web site. Lo and behold, there was nothing there!

However, with my trusty sidekick, the Google tool bar, I was able to quickly retrieve a link to the spot from the Strongfans website (I can't explain what it is. ... you've just gotta see for yourself). http://content.collegehumor.com/media/movies/starbucks.mov Whether or not I like watching TV ads online is not really relevant. Some people do. Some more than others, and no doubt plenty of those belonging to the target for a canned double shot of espresso would like watching spots online. Why wouldn't Starbucks feature this ad on their site? I'd have never known about the product-Starbucks Coffee's Doubleshot (some canned coffee drink) had I not seen the spot. (The story relayed to me about the spot didn't mention the product, just the brand, which does have value, but that's a separate discussion).

Now, though I will likely not be purchasing canned espresso, there must be plenty of people like me, who would love the ad, and who WOULD buy the product, yet who do not watch enough television in the way we have all been trained to think people watch television. Why shouldn't this advertiser use the Web to spread a very entertaining ad for the purposes of introducing this product? [Scratch head, stroke non-existent beard]

I think that just for the heck of it, companies should always make their spots available online. There is no reason to deny a branding opportunity by denying someone actually SEEKING your advertising from finding it. I think the marketing benefit is also there. There are likely others who pyschographically fit the target that do not fit the demographic.

Aside from issues regarding talent fees that would be related to paying for the distribution of the spot online (determined by arcane formulas of estimating the number of people who might see said ad), advertisers have nothing to lose and everything to gain by putting their ads online. After all, for some of us, that's the only place we're going to see them.