For 15 years we’ve heard:

-Every consumer now controls and curates their own content.

-“Content cocoons” allow each and every individual to enjoy their own personalized experience.

-Progressive advertising is about reaching the right person at the right place at the right time.

-Any Screen, Any time

According to the New TV section of the IAB’s Guide to Digital Video handbook, “The traditional notion of families across the country sitting down after dinner to watch a series of programs scheduled at 8, 9 and 10pm has fallen to the wayside” and “the digital habits of millennials are influencing the industry like never before, which is responding by creating more individualized experiences that reflect the consumer’s expectation for a personalized on demand viewing.”

But alas, the once meaningless characteristics of TV; “Co-viewing”, “full screen experience”, “time spent”, “reduced risk of fraud in a controlled ecosystem” and “extending reach” are suddenly being touted as virtues once again, by non-other than AdTech!  Could it be that since trying to tear down TV hasn’t worked, that OTT is their newest and best hope to get a piece of the TV business? Make no mistake about it, they want to infiltrate you television set the way they infiltrated your browser and when they pick the locks it will be a home invasion ever.

And as for those pesky, TV averse Millennials.. CBS Research Guru David Poltrack addressed the 45th annual UBS global Media and Communications Conference saying “as they are aging, millennials are watching more television. People between 35 and 39, the oldest of the millennial population, are watching 71% more network TV than when they were in their early 20s”.

I don’t know, maybe one day the marketing industry will wake up. You see, it’s not about platforms or data or technology or targeting or generational constructs or even advertising. We want to be together (or feel as if we’re together). We don’t want our privacy invaded. We do want and appreciate creativity. There’s a common source of all those desires – humanity.