HGTV is a hot property on television right now. I say this not because I’m reading the ratings but because I often speak to consumers at the point of sale. When a young home owner I watched This Old House with a vengeance. As we begin to think about downsizing to a smaller house, along with many other boomers, I’ve caught the bug again. This time around, compared to 25 years ago, there are hundreds of TV channels to choose from. This suggests to me an interesting and emerging opportunity for marketers: Product channels. Consumerism and technology being what they are, it won’t be long before we have TV channels dedicated to specific product categories. Think a YouTube channel writ large. An appliance channel. A garage remodeling channel. Light fixture channel. All live, all with subject matter experts as talking heads. It won’t just be JD Power live, it will have personality. Not simply ranking and rating but real footage, reportage and modest production value.
This is our future. The economics will be dicey at first but eventually will pay out. Imagine you are going to buy a midsize all-wheel drive car on Thursday and get to binge watch 3 hours of TV on it Wednesday night. Three hours well spend I suspect. (It will save 20 hours of work at the back end.) Advertisers will love it.
Peace.
