Subject: Marketing Advertisement

Question 24 (Compulsory): Read the passage carefully and answer the questions. Media planning is a vital issue for keeping pace with the technological advancement. The new technologies may alter the communications landscape forever. Rather than being just a box that provides viewing entertainment, the television is being transformed into an interactive tool that allows the viewer to play games, access movies on demand, surf the Web, and make purchases. A recent study conducted by the Nielsen Interactive Group claimed that 30 percent of Internet users now have Internet access in the same room as their TV sets. Further, the study showed that 67 percent of active Internet users are on the Net at the same time that they are watching television. What this meansaccording to Nielsen and othersis that the likelihood of watching television commercials will decrease and advertising revenues to this medium will also go down. What it also means is that opportunities will exist to reach consumers through other media like the Internet and cell phones. To a degree, consumers will almost never be out of the reach of a commercial message, and advertisers will have the opportunity to send their messages through a variety of platforms. Not everyone is ready to embrace the new technologies just yet, however. Some experts feel the industries know much more about the technologies than they do about how to use them. Other observers feel that consumers are not as excited about these capabilities as the providers think they are. The Nielsen study cited earlier demonstrated that of the 67 percent of viewers who were multitasking by using the Internet while they watched TV, more than 90 percent were pursuing unrelated tasks (e.g., not co-using two media for the same content and/or program). The findings are based on some developing and developed countries data. Other studies have shown that for the majority of consumers, television is an entertainment medium that they want to watch as couch potatoes, not interact with. David Poltrack, head of research at CBS, notes that TV is something you do when you dont want to do anything. Jeff Zucker, head of entertainment at NBC, agrees, noting: The majority of people want to sit back and just passively enjoy TV. Question 1. What are the main messages of the case? Question 2. Are the TV industry experts just fooling themselves? *