Over the past decade, we’ve seen significant changes in the way Americans watch television. The rise of streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video has led to a decrease in traditional cable and satellite TV subscriptions. So what changes can we expect to see in the next five years? Here are some trends to keep an eye on:

According to Nielsen’s global survey of multi-screen media usage, watching video content on computers has become just as common as watching video content on television among online consumers.

"While the in-home TV and computer are still the most popular devices to watch video content, usage and growth in online and mobile technologies is making a sustained impact. Three-quarters (74%) of global respondents report watching video via the Internet (on any device), up four points since 2010, and over half of global online consumers (56%) say they watch video on a mobile phone at least once a month and 28 percent at least once a day."

David Rehr, former President of the National Association of Broadcasters with some perspective for entrepreneurs on their involvement in government.

While online advertising fell overall in 2009, ad spend on online videos grew 41%.

And, with good reason.  Nielsen Research has recently released a report based on 14,000 surveys to measure the impact of video advertising online vs. video advertising on television. 

The patterns they uncovered were consistent:  video ads run during online full-episode TV programs yield deeper brand impact than corresponding on-air TV ads, with the difference most pronounced among younger viewers age 13-34.

"What accounts for this variation in impact between online video and traditional TV? Data shows that web video viewers are more engaged and attentive to the programs they are watching, which is likely a function of the viewing environment and the oft-required active mouse-clicking to initiate and continue content. Online video is also still a relative novelty compared to traditional forms of media.  Further, and most significantly, reduced ad clutter and the inability to easily skip ads are considerable recall-enhancing factors."

Another conclusion - "online video ads help to reinforce and strengthen the impact of a traditional TV campaign."

More data and analysis here.

Here's an interesting summary of a study conducted jointly by Nielsen and Facebook to determine the effectiveness of different strategies in FB ads.

"Study after study has shown that consumers trust their friends and peers more than anyone else when it comes to making a purchase decision. It’s critical that we understand advertising not just in terms of “paid” media, but also in terms of how “earned” media (advertising that is passed along or shared among to friends and beyond) and social advocacy contribute to campaigns. To that end, we took a closer look at 14 Facebook ad campaigns that incorporated the “Become A Fan” engagement unit and sliced the effectiveness results three different ways, by each of the types of ads available on Facebook: 1) Lift from a standard “Homepage Ad”; 2) Lift from an ad that featured social context or “Homepage ads with Social Context”; and 3) Lift from “Organic Ads,” newsfeed stories that are sent to friends of users who engage with advertising on a brand."

If you're interested in keeping abreast of the latest in online advertising and its effectiveness, you should be intrigued by the results.  I wonder if there are any negative implications for a brand if users are offended by unwanted and intrusive ads on social media platforms such as Facebook?

Read the entire summary here.

There is a lot to say these days about social media.  I haven't seen anything that says it better than this short video.

Link for RSS readers.

An interesting marketing/sign-of-the-times article from the Boston Globe, "We, the Target Audience."

"Nothing is off-limits from the dumb hard sell anymore - even things that aren't identifiably for sale. The long-lamented creep of commercialization has now crawled outside the bounds of commerce entirely, till real experiences and events have become promotional versions of themselves.

When public and governmental institutions are the ones doing the marketing, it's especially unsettling."

Read the entire article here.

The U.K. is to become the first major advertising economy to see online spending surpass traditional TV ads, according to forecasts by media buying agency Group M.

The report also states that online is set to overtake TV in Sweden within the next 12 months.

The U.K. has a higher percentage of public rather than ad-supported television which makes it different from the USA market.  So it will be some time before the Internet passes television here.  But with the growth of video ads online and mobile, the wave continues to swell.

The London Times reports that Google is augmenting AdWords, its search engine advertising program, with Google Print Ads which will allow Google clients to bid for ad space in participating newpapers with GOOG receiving a slice of the revenue for each deal struck.  Google already has a similar program for radio advertising, and you can expect that eventually the Google-pus will have it’s tentacles into most forms of online and offline advertising (note its recent $3.1 billion merger with Double Click).

We could be close to the day when many businesses will be able to manage their media placement (online and off) through the Google-opoly.  This will be good for businesses (and also for Google) who will be able to buy much of their media through a centralized platform that is bid-based, making the already irrelevant rate card move several steps closer to extinction.

There’s still a big place for offline advertising, and Google is smart to make a play into that space to render additional value to its growing army of clients. 

From the Wall Street Journal via BuzzMachine (Jeff Jarvis) -

"Now, for the first time, pure-play Web companies have the biggest share of the local online-ad market. In 2007, Internet companies had a 43.7% share of the $8.5 billion local online-ad market, while newspaper companies had a 33.4% share, according to the media research firm Borrell Associates. Just three years ago, newspapers had 44.1% of the local online-ad market. (Directories such as the Yellow Pages have 10.1%, and local television outlets 9.3%.)"

Jarvis goes on to note - "Newspapers are losing their own core market because they didn’t understand the scale of the internet. They still thought mass when they should have realized that small is the new big. That is, online, newspapers still threw their lot in with the big advertisers who had been the only ones who could afford their mass products. They didn’t see the mass of potential spending in a new population of small, local advertisers who never could afford to advertise in newspapers but who now could afford to buy targeted, efficient, inexpensive ads online."

"The internet is an entirely new economy. It’s not built on big. It’s built on a mass of smalls. And newspapers think big. That’s their real challenge."

Read the entire post here.

Have you noticed that things are really changing out there?