For advertisers, DVR can add up to a lot of missed advertising. With television users fast-forwarding through commercials, we can guess that approximately sixteen minutes of every hour watched are missed advertisements. That’s about eight hours per week wasted on fast-forwarding. It’s a recurring question these days- how do we reach our audiences with marketing efforts if they are fast forwarding through our opportunities?

The survey says 55% of TV fans tune into their shows online; 62% watch more online content than they did a year ago; 15% say they watch six hours of online video a week. With the convenience of online streaming through YouTube, Hulu and Hulu Plus, and Netflix, it’s not surprising that more people are getting their TV fix through the internet. Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities to advertise commercials through YouTube and Hulu.

Personally, I definitely don’t fall into the 32% that watch more than 30 hours of TV a week. That’s more than a whole day wasted! I’m not completely innocent; I do watch a good amount of TV, and I DVR mostly everything I want to watch. I still pay for Netflix Instant (no longer paying for the DVD subscription- but that’s a story for another time), and watch it every once in a while when insomnia strikes.

Do you watch more than 30 hours of TV a week? How do you watch it? Live, on demand, DVR, online? It all adds up!

For the few short years social media has been around it has completely changed the game for advertisers. As we saw last year, half of the Super Bowl advertisers simultaneously launched social media campaigns. The unique nature of the Super Bowl can help spark social momentum like few other ad opportunities can. For example, you may remember last year’s Volkswagon ad, “The Force”. This ad became the most talked about commercial on Twitter and drove in 12.5 million YouTube views before kickoff. Today, that YouTube clip has been viewed over 42 million times. That’s not only bragging rights but 42 million free impressions that never would have happened without Volkswagen’s Super Bowl campaign.

If executed well, social media can help offset the one time cost of a 30 second spot. Knowing that it will help acquire more impressions might actually make the $3.5 million price tag sound a little less ridiculous.

Among the upcoming Super Bowl advertisers this year: Budweiser, Pepsi, Kia, Mercedes and Sketchers. It’s sad that I’m already looking forward to the last game of the season when the regular season hasn’t even begun. All I want to see are good, creative commercials and the Patriots win the title. I don’t think that’s asking too much!

You would have to have lived under a rock over the past few years not to have realized advertising has changed.  And it’s not just due to shrunken budgets.  With the advent of the internet and digital technology, clients can now customize their specific message to a specific person at a specific time.  There’s just one catch.   Figuring out how to do this is very complex.  Marketing and advertising has jumped form 6 channels to thousands which then often spawn other channels.  Likewise, consumer attention has never been so fragmented.  Think Ipads and mobile phones.  And as if this weren’t enough there is now real-time two way communication with consumers yielding significant might.  Think Yelp.  Gone forever are the days of one-way controlled messaging.

Alas, there is a silver lining in the chaos.   Smart and nimble agencies who understand, stay abreast, and dare I say, stay ahead of internet marketing and digital technology will thrive.  The one caveat is that agencies must be able to educate clients about the new realities of advertising.  Sure client can do it themselves.  But do they have the immense amount of time and energy necessary to acquire the expertise and stay abreast of the new marketing technologies and then implement them effectively and consistantly or do they want to run their companies?

The video’s release occurred just before the spotlight couldn’t have been brighter on James as he played his first ever game for his new team, the Miami Heat on the NBA’s opening night here in Boston. The minute and a half long rant of questions certainly caught the eye of his former fans back in Cleveland and more importantly, basketball fans across the country, leaving viewers with a question of their own: how does he have the nerve? After dragging Cleveland through an hour long special on ESPN back in July in which he announced his decision to leave the city that was so grateful to him, James followed it up with this advertisement aimed to evoke empathy from viewers over the difficulty of his decision. It is still undetermined how much of this commercial was written and decided upon by Nike and how much of it was James himself. Regardless, the commercial was in fact released, which James certainly had the authority to disallow if desired. While some subscribe to the belief that no press is bad press, the one thing I think most of us can agree on is that this video leaves viewers with a bad taste in their mouth and a negative opinion of LeBron.

Residents of Cleveland didn’t go quiet into the night however, as a response video was uploaded just a week and half later and has since received over 3 million views.

With such a similar type of attention-drawing commercial produced for Tiger Woods following his scandal (which later resulted in a divorce), it begs yet another question: what type of reaction is Nike trying to bring on with these advertisements? If developing a brand and image is as big of an asset as we believe it to be, then releasing these reflective commercials are not helping these athletes.

Scoops Here.

Who but Scoops to give you the SM version of the latest reports out there! This just in…YouTube is taking citizen journalism to the next level with YouTube Direct!

Now anyone can be like Scoops on YouTube Direct with their iReport-style which they describe as “a new tool that allows media organizations to request, review and rebroadcast YouTube clips directly from YouTube users.”

This is not just for your average citizen rant; the company notes that ABC News, The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle are among the major news outlets already using the platform.

This is Scoops reporting to you live from ‘Talk is Cheap’ with the latest on all things great in social media…