Brand New World's chief creative officer argues that if traditional TV offered online-style navigation and contextual ad insertion opportunities, advertisers would be less skittish about ad skipping.

Let's just admit it. In the world of broadband, we've become spoiled by how easy it has become to navigate online from one search item to the next in a matter of mere seconds. We've even gotten to simultaneously "Googleing" people we're speaking to on the phone for the first time while they introduce themselves and give us their pitch.

Has broadband-enabled search merely spoiled us, or has it actually created a new pre-requisite for functionality that we've simply come to expect from everything we power up? What we do know is this: when the coveted 18 to 34 year old consumer has to settle for less in one medium than they've become accustomed to elsewhere, they become easily frustrated and are inclined to simply leave the lesser medium behind.

Television has a long way to go. After it took roughly 30 years to go from tubes to solid state so we no longer had to wait for the TV to "warm up" to give us a picture, it seemed cable would change the world forever with infinite channel choice. By the late 1990s, when terrestrial cable begot digital cable, we suddenly had hundreds of channels to choose from.  But today, we find ourselves dazed in a world of way too many remotes on the coffee table and arduous, scrolling electronic program guides that are more discouraging than encouraging.

Shouldn't searching and finding your favorite show, your channel, your game, your favorite actor, short film or even -- gasp -- your favorite commercial be as easy on TV as it is online?

The "Googleization" of TV should be here already!

In his insightful book, "The Paradox of Choice," author Barry Schwartz points out that for many consumers "more is less" because there's just too much to choose from and no simple means to navigate all the choices-- hence the brilliance of online recommendation engines like those pioneered by Amazon.com.

What we need from our cable, satellite and IPTV brethren are similar, smarter, video-based navigation guides that use our TV viewing data in much the same manner as we use IP click stream data. These guides should push us content choices that are more relevant and more personalized to our TV viewing habits, rather than making us continuously sit and click through yet another text-based program guide. 

If searching and recommending choices becomes as easy to do from the couch as it is online, then, enter the re-invigorated television advertiser. Rather than obsess about ad skipping, I bet advertisers would actually line up to participate in serving contextual ads based not on traditional television demographics and ratings but on real viewing affinities (yes, engaged viewers!). 

To date, the obstacles to achieving this that I have heard about include everything from Privacy regulations within the Cable Act of 1996, to limitations of legacy cable boxes, to regulatory issues preventing IPTV from scaling fast enough-- all of which amount to more reasons why figuring out what to watch when you're "just browsing" has become, well, just too painful.

The truth is that we already know what good looks like. The creativity and elegant simplicity built into user interfaces like Google, Apple's iPOD® and OSX, Motorola's RAZR, Visible World's MiTV, and TiVo's Favorites all demonstrate best practices in making it easy for the consumer to navigate choice. So much so that we've come to expect that same simplicity and elegance in everything we power up. And this is why we become so easily frustrated by everything from cable and satellite remotes, to digital cameras to printers whose manufacturers just don't get it. 

All is not lost. HDTV looks great. Broadband video is generating new revenue. Reality TV is withering and scripted drama is back in a big way. 

But what excites me as a creator of advertising messages is the opportunity to re-invigorate television advertising with new creative units and contextual placements-- if we can just re-invent TV's navigation.

Imagine an iTunes-like home page coming up on your television complete with everything from "most watched" to "recommendations for you" to "From the NBC archives." Then, imagine all the opportunities for advertisers to contextually match their brand attributes to your content attributes and serve appropriately. 

Will we get there?

Just ask Google.

Alan Schulman is chief creative officer for Brand New World. Read full bio.