Are you still targeting this guy?

The average American spends around 1000 hours a year watching television*. The average American spends around three and a half of those hours saying, “Shhh, the commercials are coming on.”  We call that time, Super Bowl Sunday. The rest of the time when ads come on, people are walking out of the room, eating, reading, tweeting, changing the channel, fast forwarding through / skipping over or, gasp, talking to other people in the room.

Sure, there’s still a group of people who stare intently at the screen during commercials, their head lolling back as they sink into the cushions and mindlessly chew on another fried and salted snack product (Ed. note – hey, it was a tough day, I needed to relax). So yes, commercials still have a place and still reach people, but the people they reach are not what one would call ‘engaged.’

The ‘engaged’ consumer has a different behavior pattern when consuming content. They’re leaning forward, commenting, posting, sharing, tagging, uploading, downloading, recording, scoring, earning, emailing checking-in and updating. But they’re not doing that with your banner ad, or your YouTube pre-roll.

How many of the actions in the previous paragraph are you planning for when putting together a strategic marketing plan?

Tags: couch potato