I was reading through the "most hated commercial" thread and had some ideas. Now that I have digital cable, I am wondering why advertising hasn't upgraded with it. I figure a lot more viewers than ever have an addressable cable box of some sort since the USA switched from analog to digital.

I keep hearing about advertisers not liking TiVo (or generic DVR) users because they think we don't watch ads. In my case, I watch ads but only the ones that either the product interests me or the ad amuses me. Why should I watch an ad about something I have no interest in buying anyways?

With the information available from digital cable and similar devices, I figure advertisers could learn what we are watching, both programs and ads. They could learn what we watch live, what we record, what we record and re-watch, etc.

I think the current model of advertising is annoying and inaccurate. They complain I don't watch their ads but all they try to do is bombard me with a bunch of stuff that I don't care about. If they ever bothered to look, they could see that I do watch some ads. They could even tailor it to be more effective.

If it's simply laziness on their part, why not just put a permanent ad scroll at the bottom of the screen and skip ad breaks altogether? Then folks like me couldn't skip ads at all and they would benefit from more ad time.