The New-Box Paradox

As a frenetic year in the world of television advertising begins to wind down, one of the ways 2006 may be remembered is that it was a banner year for “new-box” prophecies.

A lot of attention has been rightfully paid to the full range of video capabilities made possible by a growing number of “new boxes,” from video iPods to portable media players to video-enabled cell phones to game stations. And there are more permutations than you can count.

These new boxes promise to augment, extend, alter, or forever change TV viewing and, thus, television advertising.

The new-box prophecies were born out of new products of great promise (see: Apple) and from the “ubiquity” of new video applications (see: Google’s acquisition of YouTube) on “TV-like” boxes (broadband-video-enabled PCs). The sheer number of video-application prophecies produced a collective “new-box fever” in our industry conversations, gatherings and press coverage.

Advertisers should be excited by the promise of new-box fever, but should be cautioned to temper that enthusiasm and the accompanying prognostications by looking through the glasses of their ultimate arbiters — the consumers of their goods and services.

Nearly all marketers are well-schooled in advertising’s most important discipline — that of obsessively learning from and listening to the consumers and customers that make or break them. This consumer-first approach informs an immutable media truth when it comes to new boxes: The fact that a new box can sneeze does not means millions of consumers will instantaneously catch a cold … or that it represents a breakthrough advertising development.

I learned the above truth 10 times over after a couple of decades of working intimately with top U.S. marketers — real fast-movers in intensely competitive product categories — while employed at some of the best advertising/media agencies in the business.

We saw countless “new boxes” of every shape and form. Despite all of their capabilities, none succeeded in changing the fact that consumers take their dear sweet time embracing something that asks them to change their behavior.

Regardless of how “intuitive” or “self-evident” the box’s benefits may be, there is always an element of uncertainty when dealing with consumer behavior and, ultimately, adoption. Consumers are simply not ready until they’re ready; until millions of them are ready.

Make no mistake: I do think that some of the 2006 new-box/new-apps headlines may foretell a changed TV and video advertising landscape. However, it won’t be on the manufacturer, developer, content provider or distributor’s timeline. Television “as we know it” won’t be supplanted in any way, shape or form any time soon based solely on the capabilities of a new box.

Perhaps the most important leap to avoid should you catch a dose of new-box fever is the “advertising will work there” leap.

There is now research that definitively demonstrates that the world of multiscreen video and advertising on the non-TV boxes (PCs; cell phones, iPods , PSPs, etc.) is not yet accepted, expected or valued as it is with television. All of our industry measurement numbers also show ‘06 television usage growing in the face of these video alternatives — nothing is yet being supplanted.

New-box fever is great fodder for blog discussions and headline news. Managing our collective expectations for the impact new boxes will have on mass consumer behavior is the more meaningful discussion our industry should have in the coming year. It’s also the lesson learned 1,000 times before by advertisers.

Want some additional perspective? Everything we knew about TVs and PCs found in the definitive 1990 The Future of TV report said that we would be working on “converged content boxes” using voice commands by 2005.

Consumers would be paying attention to blended video interfaces as we paid our bills on this magic device. Now, 15 years later, the reality is that 2005 turned out to be a boom year for selling larger and flatter TVs and smaller and smaller PCs. Seems we were guilty in 1990 of a similar strain of “box fever.”

Like 1990, the only certainty in an uncertain 2007 will be that consumers will have other ideas to test our exuberance.