correlate

I will admit, I am a fast-forwarder. I condense three hours of prime time viewing into a much more condensed time frame, usually starting at 10 p.m. The ability to fast-forward on a DVR has been a much debated issue in the advertising community. Now, NBC comes out with a study that I first saw mentioned this morning in Techdirt that states that people still pay attention and that the ads have value even in fast forward most.

Now, of course, media outlets have every reason to want to say people still pay attention to the ads, it is in their interests. And many are not buying it. The challenge for advertisers is to find that positive correlation in the advertising run with brand equity increase and/or product sales increase.  The same goes for ad campaigns on the internet.  Even with the technology in place to avoid ads, I for one do still pay attention. (At a minimum, I need to watch for when to stop fast forwarding!)

One thing on the DVR front that jumps out at me is ‘fast-forward ads’.  What is that?  Well, why not design an ad that gets the message across without sound and in fast forward mode.  Remember, those cartoons people draw that shows animation when you flip the pages, same thing, frame-by-frame story telling.  One of the commentors on Techdirt said they’ve seen it in action.  I know I’ve seen it on the side of the tunnel going between Hoboken and NYC, Target ran a whole campaign in that tunnel a couple of years ago.  I still remember all those Target logos bouncing around.

No, I’m probably not starting this as a monthly thing but I do have to give credit where credit is due. Marc Andreessen, <sarcasm>known to be an extremely unsuccessful entrepreneur as the co-founder of Netscape, LoudCloud and now Ning, </sarcasm> is now author of the correlate “Blog of the Month” award: blog.pmarca.com.

And as world renown as ‘correlate’ is, this is quite the accomplishment since the blog was only launched at the beginning of June. It is one of the more thorough blogs with some of the most comprehensive posts I’ve read in quite some time. Not sure how he finds the time between Ning and writing it. He has some fantastic coverage on Facebook. Some very good insight in the nature of working with venture capitalists. And the latest is his Guide to Start-ups.

I highly recommend it. And if there was any doubt, the tag line “Often wrong, never in doubt” wins the correlate “Blog Tag line of the Month” award.