Video is 80% audio. Advertising is 99% audio.
I was sitting at home a couple nights ago watching television with my new Series 3 HD TiVo recorder. Unfortunately the wife was watching Desperate Housewives live so there was no ability to fast forward through commercials. I was sitting next to her working on my MacBook, not really paying attention when all of a sudden the 5.1 surround kicked in.
I had to stop everything.
It wasn't Desperate Housewives that caught my attention or even the fact that the commercial I was watching was in High Definition. It was the surround sound experience that really grabbed at me. The commercial was for the new Apple iPod Nano and while the visuals were nice, the audio was amazing. It was a subtle effect that drew me in. I already own an iPod Nano (the new black one) but this really, really drew me in. It's not enough to just have commercials in High Definition, they should take full advantage of what HD has to offer and make good use of the additional audible experience.
It's said that only 10% of advertising works, they just don't know which 10%. I'm here to tell you that it's the audio, stupid.
