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:

This TED talk by Brene Brown is profound, enlightening, and encouraging.  Enjoy and share.

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.

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.

One of the haunting memories of the 2004 tsunami was the phenomenon that immediately preceded it.  The oceans receded and scores of curious individuals wandered out into the waterless shoreline to inspect this peculiar development.  Had these folks had any experience with a tsunami, they would have been running the opposite direction rather than sauntering about with the crabs and other exposed marine crustaceans. 

The economy is in a down cycle.  Profits, revenues, investment, credit - these all appear to be receding.  This scares a lot of people who still seem to expect that the economy should move in only one direction - up.  But this cycle will be followed by another wave, and in the same way Google was born in the depths of the dot com bust, this is a time of great opportunity.

I was reminded of this again in a recent post by Seth Godin.

It's a good season for entrepreneurs.  Be on top of this next wave, not under it.

Yesterday I had breakfast with my brother, his wife, and one of our former business professors who is still a great friend.  The service and the food were pretty good, with me relishing a bowl of oatmeal and dry wheat toast as penance for my holiday splurge.  After the plates were picked up and the check was delivered and paid, there were no further offers for coffee refills even though we sat there and talked for another hour midst a sparse crowd in the restaurant.

I assume once our waitress delivered the check she considered her work at our table to be done.  Then there is this skill they teach in food service school of being able to avoid eye contact with customers.  She was flawless but I'm sure also clueless.

Roy Williams at Wizard Academy talks a lot about the importance of first and last mental images when developing advertising copy.  The same applies to someone's experience with your business.  Yesterday my first image was good.  Place was clean, service was quick.  But that last mental image of a cold and lonely coffee cup yearning for one more fill...

Be sure to stay engaged with your customers until they are ready to leave, whether it's your store, your cell phone, or your website.  Don't squander a good first impression with a fumble on the one-yard line.

My friend Holly Buchanan has announced her awards for Marketing to Women in 2007.

Read about it here.

As the whole media landscape changes with mass media losing its mass to scores of micro-channels, it's important that marketers not get overly focused on the media placement issues of communication.  Getting the right message, telling the right story, understanding your audience (gender, personality type, etc.), and creatively packaging that right message - these are still the priorities for marketers.  Dealing with the massive shift in media is but another added opportunity for stress and growth.

The rudimentary BizDreams 1.0 site is available for your inspection.

I'd be interested in your feedback.  Like all sites, it's a work in progress.

Link for RSS readers.

The conference has been excellent. 

I'm a bit weary of writing about it, so let me summarize (in my own words like Mrs. Johnson told me in sophomore English).

• The rate of growth in online advertising is steep which is creating a lot of opportunities for those who figure it out.
• According to a survey by Marketing Sherpa, the combined spend for paid search and online ads for a recent 12-month period is estimated at 12.2 billion dollars.  This is substantial but to give it perspective consider that the spend for direct (postal) mail alone was $58.7 billion, newspapers $30 billion, and even local radio rang in at $15.5 billion.  But online is growing the fastest and is in fact eating into ad spends for many other mediums including television.
• According to Jay Adelson of Digg and Revision 3 fame, forget trying to build Internet video around the Flash player.  You're going to need something portable and something that will work well with that big flat screen hanging on your living room wall.
• Carla Hendra of Ogilvy had a lot of great points including: