Blurring the Lines

What else? Lots.

The 10-foot experience is borrowing from the 2-ft and vice-versa. From your sofa, TiVo can now serve up Youtube videos. And now TiVo offers ads that give consumers choice -- so while they don't want to be interrupted during programing, they can select if and when they want to see ads that are of interest. These commercials often are, and should be, different than the interruptive type we're used to. The idea isn't to disrupt you enough to keep you from flipping the channel. Rather, these ads need to be relevant to the viewers' interests, allowing consumers to drill down to more detail and information as they choose, including long-format ads that don't have to conform to standard :15, :30 or :60 formats.

Back at the 2-ft screen, users can pick and choose their video experience as networks migrate away from the couch, leaving a lot of room for innovation in the way marketers communicate with their audience -- but never forgetting relevance, experience and context.

And most exciting is how all these experiences -- internet and TV screen, mobile and retail can build on each other right along with traditional media, to form a truly integrated experience. THAT is what will distinguish what we call interactive in the future.

The barn door has been opened.

In fact, it's a new brand world. Wanna play?