If you must advertise on TV...

After a weekend spent watching more TV than I usually do -- bad weather and laziness contributed to this -- I reached a boiling point. The final straw was viewing a free on-demand movie and being subjected to the same three TNT show promos every 20 minutes. Same three, same order every time. They realize that viewers can fast forward through these, right?

This morning, AdAge published this "news": Repeat Ad Nauseum: TV Spots Risk Driving Consumers Away. Obviously, this isn't news, but I thought it was pretty interesting timing. Maybe everyone else is reaching a similar boiling point at the same time? Or maybe a lot of advertisers still don't understand that TV and media consumption has changed significantly, and will continue to change.

When I think about what I recall from the video/tv ads I saw this weekend, there are three that immediately come to mind for me. It only took one viewing of each for me to recall them, and two of the three I saw online, not on television. The first was Wii Music, which I shared on this blog yesterday. The other two are for Adidas Originals and Bruce Lee's playing ping pong for Nokia.

So what does it mean that I recalled ads that I saw once, while I won't remember the other ads until I see them again? Keep in mind, many of these are common sense.

• The TV spot isn't dead. Just the really bad ones. I know, I know. The ads above were practically made for me (males 25-35 target), but that doesn't make them any less compelling.
• Targeting still matters. I know we're in a fragmented media market, but at least try to buy media in appropriate spots.
• If you must run ads during shows or movies that are made available on demand, there is an even bigger opportunity to target specifically and run more captivating ads. Mad Men does a great job of this. These ads often come as a surprise to a viewer who is expecting to settle in for a commercial-free movie, so they are quick to get annoyed. Their finger never leaves the "forward" button on the remote.
• Shows airing online should not have the exact same commercials as they did when they ran on television. The audience watching has changed, and so should the ads
• Even good spots get old when people are forced to watch them every fifteen minutes. It's possible to actually lose customers by doing this.
• All ads should exist online, be embeddable and allow comments.
• And probably the most important one: Make spots that people want to watch, not that they have to. All ads are more compelling when people come to you.

Thoughts?