This morning I spoke to the sales reps at our Charleston Comcast Spotlight office. I shared with them some observations that I have of the revolution that is going on in advertising. I’ve written about this before. They are important and are worth repeating.

• The days of interruption advertising are over
• Advertising must become individual. It must speak one-to-one.
• Seek co-creation of the message with users. The best advertising is generated by strong input from your customers and users.
• The most successful advertising is highly targeted to specific segments and is delivered in multiple media.
• You must have diversity of message. Your customers aren’t all the same. Neither should your message be.

Recent surveys have shown that 71% of consumers use the internet for personal business at least two hours a day. Only 48% of responding consumers spend equivalent amounts of time watching TV. In a recent issue of AdAge (March 10, 2008; page 18) Mike Vorhaus reported that in a recent survey consumers, they overwhelmingly agreed with the statement, “The computer increasingly competes with the TV for my entertainment time.” Young males (18-24) lead the group, but females weren’t far behind and others who strongly responded to this included people 55-64.

The way we take up information is vastly different than it was five years ago and not nearly as different as it will be in five more years. Filtering is a way of life. We use our DVRs to skip spots that don’t interest us. We filter e-mail. We use mobile content providers.

If you aren’t ready for the revolution, get ready. It’s here.