Heckling the Upfront TV Market

Have you seen the VidLit about the Upfront Media Market?

It represents a confluence of two cool things – a book on how out of whack the value of TV advertising is and a use of online video that is very powerful.

You don’t have to know anything about advertising to agree with Joe Jaffe’s premise that the upfront is an anachronism. TV audiences are fragmented and declining while prices for TV spots, that increasing numbers of viewers zap, are soaring.

Reliance on 30-second spots are the last gasp by ad agencies and clients who really don’t know how to address the impact of the internet and who can’t get ahead of the curve on how real people have taken control of the media and the message. These big marketing dinosaurs mostly hope things could go back to the way they always were.

In contrast www.vidlit.com is an innovative use of short videos on the web. Founded by Liz Dubelman to publicize books, she’s created a bunch of very funny and effective marketing pieces that can be viewed on her site. Is it ironic that online video would be used to highlight the shortcomings of broadcast advertising?