IBM released more solid evidence that people spend at least as much time online as watching TV and that content (like movies and TV shows) will be increasingly platform agnostic. THANK YOU BIG BLUE. Read it all here.

Now perhaps the advertising industry can start re-inventing media revenue models, demand the delivery of more than mere impressions, and even get serious about doing research on consumer behavior patterns to build those models without a bias toward any one box. Or should we wait for HP to get involved?

Yesterday Youtube.com announced they would beginning running ads over some videos; you can get most of the details (spreadsheets with potential income, I do mean details) and a taste of the associated controversy here.

This is just a first step for Youtube.com as it searches for model to monetize consumer generated video. Yes, Britecove and VideoEgg have been using this format, but not at the scale or probably precision of the Youtube effort. Nor were they about to share their results.

With this learning, Youtube.com will move on to the next step. In other words, this is an iterative process; not finished tomorrow. Not standardized in a week, a year or even two. And while Youtube.com is focused on the issue of consumer generated content, their work has implications for the effectiveness of video advertising across the Web.

Their method has just clarified what some of us have known for a while: solving the puzzle of what to do with video online wasn’t going to be solved by a simple transfer of 30-second spots, as pre-roll, to the Internet. The interactive experience online is different (egad I am sick after 15 &%*#@ years of saying this) than watching a TV. Not better or worse, just different. Thus it requires different methods for interacting with the consumer using it.

So start thinking different. Or let the Youtube.coms and Facebook.coms of the world do it for you. I prefer the former position.

Sports Brands such as Nike and Reebok have seldom dropped one of their spokespeople when they were accused of a crime such as: hanging out with prostitutes, doing drugs, raping women, inciting murder, carrying a concealed weapon, or spousal abuse. Similarly the NFL has always been almost delicate in handing out suspensions for a range of abuses and outright crimes.

I’ve always assumed this was the result of two biases: 1) the NFL never wants to offend their players; 2) the NFL believes their predominately male fan base doesn’t want to acknowledge these guys might be truly bad; rather they “made a mistake,” “committed errors of judgment,” “fell in with a bad group” – all thing that, at a less extreme level, fans can relate to.

Then along comes Michael Vick with 60+ dead and tortured dogs poisoning everything about Pro Football in less than thirty seconds.

Nike and Reebok, and the trading card companies Upper Deck and Dorrmuss cut Vick from their rosters within 2 weeks of the first press. So fast they got heat from women’s groups screaming double standard as they’d never reacted so quickly when a player was accused of beating a woman.

The NFL took their usual “presumption of innocence stance.”

Vick made his plea agreement with the Feds. But NFL and Commissioner Brian Goodell continues their own investigation, with most writers assuming he will give Vick a one year suspension to follow his jail time. Tikki Barber proclaimed on NBC’s Sunday Night Football that Vick will be back in the NFL in 3 years.

I doubt Reebok and Nike will be quite so forgiving.

Why is NFL commissioner Brian Goodell blind to the danger his Brand is in? Maybe he thinks fans won’t care. He is wrong. Today’s ESPN poll shows that 83% of respondents don’t want Vick on their home team if he ever plays again.

They know Vick’s crimes are different:
First, this was a felonious enterprise systematically conducted for three years to make money; cold blooded, not a crime of passion.
Second, real men don’t hurt dogs. You may not love them, but torture them as a business? This isn’t something most guys think is a good time. Read the boards; there is very little of “the %$#@ deserved it” going on.

Vick’s crimes make him different and they are already tainting the brand.

The NFL needs to walk away from Micheal Vick.

He is in a different league and it is not the NFL; Commissioner Goodell should make that very clear.

In the world of consumer electronics it’s impossible to gauge a company’s success by analyzing channels independently from one another. Consumers’ adoption of cross-channel shopping (up an average of 10% from ’04) has complicated the measurement process to the point where online sales cannot be viewed independently from brick-and-mortar sales. In 2006, consumers purchased $111 billion worth of consumer electronics. It would appear that retail stores greatly out performed their online counterparts, selling $85.8 billion and $25.2 billion respectively. However, with more consumers spending time online researching and comparing products, it’s clear that online sites are fueling in-store sales.

Although online sites represent an opportunity for companies to attract customers by offering product descriptions and reviews, retaining consumer loyalty proves to be a more arduous task. 65% of consumer electronic customers claim to conduct online research 12+ times per year (Forrester, “The State of Consumer Electronics Online Lead Referrals” April, 2006). Half of these individuals purchased from different retailers than where they researched. Herein lies the problem. In order for companies to promote consumer loyalty, they must cleverly link their online and offline stores.

Many companies have spearheaded the issue and devised remedies of their own. Best Buy has attempted to eliminate competition between channels by attributing partial credit for online sales to local stores based on proximity to the shipping address. Likewise, their online stores receive credit for any sales made from in-store kiosks. Lowe’s, IKEA, and Circuit City have created interactive design tools that allow customers to design projects online and access their designs in-store, where employees can assist them. Implementing strategies such as these requires foresight; however, for companies to retain loyalty, they must invest in programs that will keep them on par with the changing consumer behavior.