Advertisers: This is how we watch today

Ah summer, it used to be the season of a television drought. Then came counter-programming on USA like Burn Notice and Royal Pains (so beloved by Grant McCracken, hey there Grant!), or on SyFy like Warehouse 13. Thank you television gods, even if you have made the Fall new show season less of a festive holiday than it used to be (oh the memories of gathering around a flickering tube to watch premiere episodes of shows like 'Manimal' or 'Cop Rock' and gleefully predict their demise!)

But I digress.

Old habits die hard, and new technologies form a bridge. I have had a busy spring, and what with nine classes and a full Second Life, I have hardly had time to spend with my old friend. I miss you, television! But that is okay, since thanks to my DVR I can stockpile shows (Bones! Vampire Diaries! Supernatural!) for what will certainly be the dog days (and nights) of deep July and hot August, when all one is capable of doing is lying on the floor, panting.

And so, last week, I opened the valve on Supernatural. Doing laundry, other house-y projects, I greedily watched one episode, two, three at a time. In a row. And it occurred to me that advertisers are really not taking advantage of this change of behavior -- 'cause seriously, am I the only person who does this? No. Not only do I know of other people who do this, but wouldn't it be statistically unlikely for me to be a sole outlier here? What are the odds? Not to mention the fact that for the past 25 years or so I have been a reliable bell-weather for mainstream tastes. Merlot in the 1990s? You are welcome.

So, if I am watching several weeks worth of eps chained together, shouldn't advertisers almost be back to their roots with soap operas? Creating serial, narrative vehicles that promote their products in a sequence, offering some new tidbit on a weekly basis, rather than the same blah blah that I skipped through after the first three accidental viewings? Because I DO pause and I DO remember what I paused on (love that Ford Focus commercial by the way, I even called in my parkour obsessed son to watch it). It wouldn't hurt, as well, if you could go back to explaining what the ACTUAL benefits of your product were, but that is grist for another blog.

It doesn't even have to cost much more than exercising your brain to offer some minimally engaging intellectual tidbit, a game, a puzzle to solve, a mystery? Nothing elaborate, just something for me to hang my attention on for 30 seconds. As opposed to product placements, which, are almost always intrusive and laughable, even to grade schoolers. Though, again, Twizzlers took this quality and amped it up past the point of ridiculousness to almost genius.

Now if you would just do something about Christmastime, another season of television dearth and dreck.