Advertisements online now enable marketers the ability to interact with customers. After watching Criminal Minds on the CTV Canadian website, I realized that networks that provide their shows online have increased the amount of advertisements that are aired during each ‘break’ of the show. This really doesn’t come to a surprise to me that networks are beginning to increase the amount of advertisements that are played. I just want to comment on the breakthrough the marketers now have.

Commercials now have the ability to be even more interactive and engage their consumers more. Marketers also have the ability to effectively reach their desired target. For better or for worse, marketers now have the option to choose when their advertisements can air based on a more targeted approach. For instance, advertisements from brands that are focussed specifically on targeting the Criminal Minds viewers gives the marketer the ability to reach this specific target. Criminal Minds can now be watched at any time of the day for viewers. Previously, a new Criminal Minds episode could have only been viewed at a specific time – say prime time, for example. The only downfall I see from this change in television to online television, is the fact that marketers do not really have the option anymore to reach a broader audience if they choose to use online television as an advertising platform, unless they were to play their advertisements with multiple shows and this could get very expensive. Not only is there advantage with show advertisements becoming more targeted, but advertisements that play on shows are also interactive. Viewers have the ability to click on the actual advertisement and have it immediately direct them to the brand website that had the advertisement.

Brian Solis – principal analyst at Altiemer Group, and award-winning author, prominent blogger, and keynote speaker, writes about how television is becoming a multi-screen experience. Now with the fact that television can now be watched online, this reduces the amount of ‘screens’ people are looking at. But this doesn’t mean it has gotten any less complicated. Television is now referred to as being Social…Read more on Brian Solis’ blog.