HD Words

The Couch Potato has evolved.  He’s not that big messy slob we can depend on every night to watch the most impressive programs we produce for him.   He’s not a lock to watch that precious 16 minutes of every hour.  He just can’t be counted on to veg out and watch our 30 seconds pieces of art on a nightly basis.

So where is he?  Well , he’s still on the couch, but he’s much more sophisticated.  The TV is on.  But so is his laptop.  And he has 12 tabs open on his web browser.  His BlackBerry is on too, and it’s delivering e-mail, just in case he misses it on the laptop.   Oh, and the TV he’s watching is a 50″ plasma, so he’s using PIP.

This is the new Couch Potato.  It’s time to get re-introduced.  He’s not fat and lazy anymore.  He’s lean.  He’s busy.  He’s got so much going on that he burns 500 calories an hour because his senses are sweating to  keep pace with all the messages we send him.  He’s less like an enormous Idaho potato with a bunch of bacon, butter and sour cream – and more like a trim french fry without the grease.  He’s Couch Potato 2.0.

It’s harder than ever to get your ideas across to your customer.  Couch Potato 2.0 looks at 11-teen bajilion messages an hour.  Don’t worry, that’s a real number I just used.  It’s just so big you’ve never heard of it.   So the serious problem we have is getting our message across to a new Couch Potato who happens to be ADD.

It’s not enough to assume that your target Couch Potato is on You Tube, so he’s going to see your video.  You should let him know about the video by advertising it on Facebook, or traditional billboards, or radio, or TV, or other web applications, or any combination of those.  You need a multi-faceted approach to reach Couch Potato 2.0.  He needs a bunch of reminders because he’s got so much going on.  And I’m not suggesting that a You Tube video is right for everybody.  It’s not.  Your message should be niched to your niche.  In fact, each campaign you create should be micro-niched to grab the attention of the specific Couch Potato you want.  To cut through all the clutter, your messaging needs to be more direct than ever, and you will be mucho successful!

Shameless plug: To learn more about Couch Potato 2.0, come to the South Daktoa Communicator’s Network meeting on Wednesday, May 6th at 11:45 A.M. at the Ivy Room in Sioux Falls.

I was happy to come into work today to read some research that’s backed up what we’ve been predicting for months.  More and more people are watching online video that’s produced by professionals.  We’re constantly asked by clients to produce a YouTube video.  When we ask why, the answer is normally something like, “Well, it’s cheap”.  And they’re right.  You can produce a video and throw it on YouTube, and pray somebody watches it.  And it can be done cheaply.  And it can look cheap.  But is that really a good strategy?  Now, I’m not saying that YouTube isn’t a great online tool.  It’s fantastic. For some of our clients, it’s the perfect place to house videos.  But thinking about it on a large scale, people are only going to watch and connect with so many user-generated videos.  It is extremely important that online video, even the YouTube stuff, is done professionally.  It needs to look top notch.  People always crave quality.  You would never expect that a home movie about a trip to Africa would attract a higher audience than a video done by a professional documentary crew.  So why would you market your business that way?