Why Traditional Advertising Is Broken

So I’m watching the Vikings game last Sunday and, for a change, I’m watching it live rather than as I usually do, a half hour after kickoff so I can fast forward through the commercials using my DVR. As a result, of course, I was forced to endure the commercials.

I’m forced to watch ridiculous commercials demonstrating a certain super duty pickup truck’s ability to tow a cargo plane. Let me ask you, how often do you find a need to tow a cargo plane?

I get more and more annoyed as the game goes on and I have to watch this carpet bombing of stupid commercials that are absolutely irrelevant to yours truly.

The whole time I’m thinking this whole process is a colossal waste of money and effort. Both myself and the advertiser are losing in this attempt at communication; my time is going to just as must waste as the advertiser’s money. I’m not their target market and I never will be and the advertiser is paying millions of dollars for a two to five percent return.

And, you must know, this is coming from someone who really likes advertising; good advertising, anyway.

Someone forgot to tell television advertisers that we live in an on-demand, self-selected world. I want ads on my own terms and now I have the tools to enforce that desire.

This video I found at Marketing Pilgrim nicely demonstrates the problem with traditional advertising. It was produced by Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions: