Tech Eye for the Ad Guy?

The New York Times, in its article Leisure Pursuits of Today's Young Man by John Schwartz, has added yet more empirical support to the notion that customer behavior is in the middle of a period of fundamental and radical change.

Citing the number of men ages 18 to 24 with Internet access at 75%, the article points out that, although a number of factors render exact statistical comparison unreliable, increased Web use could be to blame for decreased TV viewership in this demographic group. Men in this age group are hanging out Online, playing games with friends, sharing files and tunes, downloading porn, and generally using the Web as a major tool in their lives.

Well, duh.

Even while spinning the news that TV viewership in this group was down again by implying that the blame should be on the boys' bladders, the traditional ad industry had to find it still more difficult than usual to deny that these numbers actually mean something. As the Times noted:

The television industry was shaken last October when the ratings from Nielsen Media Research showed that a huge part of a highly prized slice of the American population was watching less television. As the fall TV season began, viewership among men from 18 to 34 fell 12 percent compared with the year before, Nielsen reported. And for the youngest group of adult men, those 18 to 24, the decline was a steeper 20 percent.

In a world where fortunes are made and lost over the evanescent jitterings of fractions of audience share, the Nielsen announcement was the equivalent of a nuclear strike, a smallpox outbreak and a bad hair day all rolled into one.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/29/technology/29guy.html)

Do you think it would really ruin their day on Madison Avenue to learn what portion of those men are tempering their TV time with TIVO?

Change demands relevance and value. The Ad Guy and the Tech Guy need to find out where the Customer Guy hangs out these days.