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by Tony Santos

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Take a good look around. In a few more short years, the world of advertising is going to look, sound, and feel completely different. In some ways the changes in store are so dramatic, the concepts and forces driving advertising were unheard of just a couple of years ago.

Largely due to Tivo, and other DVR's (Digital Video Recorders), the days of the 30-second broadcast TV commercial are numbered. That is a foregone conclusion. Advertisers and broadcast networks know this, and are scrambling. That's why you're seeing more plugs of cars, soft drinks, beer, and other brands being placed right into the TV shows themselves. This is nothing new, it's been done in movies for years. Only recently, however, have advertisers and broadcasters really begun to see the value of embedding their messages in the programming content itself. This is being done in addition to or in lieu of running commercials that frankly, most of their audience don't even watch anymore.

15 and 30-second spots will be limited solely to local markets during news broadcasts and late night hours, if that. Prime-time advertising, as well as advertising during sporting events, will continue to evolve as they are before our very eyes. This will continue until a viable model that will stick around for a few years comes of age. Just watch "Monday Night Football" to see what's happening with sports broadcasts. The ads are all over the screen during the game, when they know their audience is watching.

One power that advertisers do get from the new age of TV is some major tracking data of household's viewing habits, likes and dislikes. The data they garner enables advertisers to know what interests and entertains their target audience. By using Tivo and cable DVR's as an interface, advertisers can showcase various products and services promotions right through the box. Interactivity in advertising brings its robustness even a step further. Advertisers are already tinkering with this, and expect to see a lot more of it in the future.

Most ad-biz insiders also believe that print advertising as we know it, namely general-audience newspapers and periodicals, will whither away. It has already proven itself to be a shrinking market, seeing declining numbers each year since 2003. There's no reason why this won't continue, until it finally goes the way of the buggy whip.

Print media will need to replace its lost revenues with multi-media supplement versions of its content and in essence, its advertising. These supplements, which can be web-based or fed through interactive TV, will extract valuable data from its subscribers and refine the targeting of the advertising.

Say you subscribe to Field and Stream magazine. As a subscriber, they already know you are interested in hunting and fishing. By implementing new media and data mining technology via their website powered by dynamic content, they will also be able to find out particulars about their subscriber base. Such as: what brands of gear you prefer; and the locales you like to go to catch trout. Advertisers will be able to target their ads with pinpoint accuracy to F&S subscribers who have been deemed most interested in what they have to offer. These targeting decisions will be based on this ever-accumulating data. Many magazine publishers have already started implementing these strategies. You can bet that others will jump on board to keep their ad revenues from shrinking to the point of oblivion.

On-line Advertising - Branding, graphic and keyword search advertising will continue to boom and become even more sophisticated and targeted. Already, most major advertisers are on board this model with great success. The industry agrees that it will trump standard media advertising in the US and Europe in just a few more years. The good news for smaller business is no matter how much larger advertisers dominate, the smaller businesses will be able to thrive via specialization and localization.

This subject can't be covered without touching on the various data tracking concepts that advertisers have already started using. One hot targeting concept is called "behavioral tracking". Via an intermediary data compiler, Behavioral Tracking allows advertisers and marketers to track individual users' web surfing habits. Anonymously and without breaching any personal or private information, according to industry insiders.

This will raise the bar on demographic data beyond anything being tapped with current technologies. A car manufacturer, for instance, can effectively tap into this data being harvested by a company that specializes in this method of tracking, like Claria, of Redwood City, California. With this tracking data, they can, in essence find users who have surfed by various car websites over the past 3 months. By finding out what sites they surf by, they can then ensure that the users can view their advertising. The advertising is then displayed especially for their selected views via a neutral site, such as Yahoo, Google or one of its affiliate sites, or even content sites like Salon.com. It's targeted advertising brought to an entirely new level.

Pod-cast Advertising - Thanks to the Ipod, multimedia cel phones, PDA's and other digital devices, Pod-casting has become a standalone method of content distribution. Advertisers and content publishers can provide daily, weekly or monthly pod-casts that provide real content, entertainment, and information. At the same time showcasing their company or products. With Podcasting, it's fairly easy to advertise to desired demographics. Because it's media on-demand, the end user can hear or view the pod-cast at will. Much like they're already doing with their TV shows on Tivo. Podcasting has some serious audience demographics data already built-in. Over time podcasters will be able to sift even more data from their audience, such as musical tastes, concerts visited, and more. This will become valuable data for other advertisers.

Blogs and Forums - Blogging has become a major source of content on the internet, and the "blogosphere" has become a major force. Bloggers share content with other blogs through cross-linking. Readers can traverse to different blog sites in the same niche using links and syndication. It's a truly revolutionary flow of content and information. Advertisers have figured out that they can use blogs to provide in-depth content about their company, people and products. In doing so they also create a rich dialog with their audience. Forums are being used in the same manner. They give companies a channel to communicate with its audience on a mass scale, and provide the same kind of two-way dialog. Used wisely, this can be powerful stuff for advertising.

Privacy - This remains a hot button in the future of advertising, and the industry is doing its best to toe the line, so to speak. The fine lines in what is considered consumer tracking and what is being considered invasion of privacy are becoming more defined. There is already legislation being discussed in both the US and the EU to establish standards for privacy that both industry groups and privacy proponents can both live with. In the end, it can be expected that there will be at least some level of protection of privacy online. But how much of that is just "window dressing" may take awhile to figure out.

Be assured that several other advertising trends will continue to emerge. The Brave New World of advertising is indeed here and will continue to develop and evolve at warp speed.

Learn more about this author, Tony Santos.

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