A recent AP article discussed how TV content and commercials are becoming indistinguishable. Advertisers are trying to make their spots as interesting as the shows they're placed in so that today's TiVo
The CW, which is owned by Time Warner
This past season, however, I was stopped dead in my tracks by one of those sinister content wraps -- it was part of an ad campaign for a Toyota
This truly is ingenious, and one can expect the trend not only to continue, but explode -- as it should. Let's face it: No one wants to watch commercials, especially the run-of-the-mill, antiquated kind. Instead, the YouTube generation wants to see "clips" and/or ads that are well-integrated into a show. Earlier this year, I wrote an article about Nielsen Media Research's initiative to derive ratings data for commercial spots. Advertisers are under the gun -- they will need to concentrate on their craft more than ever before to ensure that their products are just as compelling as whatever's being offered on General Electric's
Of course, viewers aren't stupid. For the most part, they'll realize when an attempt is being made to sell them something. (Hey, I knew what was happening during Smallville.) But they won't mind, as long as the commercials are fun and interesting.
If networks and advertisers work together and get people to stop fast-forwarding through spots, this will benefit all the media companies and increase the value of network inventory.
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Fool contributor Steven Mallas owns shares of General Electric. As of this writing, he was ranked 5,184 out of 29,400 rated investors in the Motley Fool CAPS system. Don't know what CAPS is? Check it out. The Fool has a disclosure policy.