Game changing announcement from the folks at TiVo and PayPal this week. Now you can buy stuff from your TV.

Starting this fall, TiVo users can hook their PayPal account up to their TiVO account. According to the announcement:

This integration creates a new opportunity for advertisers and brands to connect with TiVo users and to turn their 30-second spots and interactive TiVo ad placements into actionable purchasing opportunities through a one-time account link.

This is a big step on the road to convergence.

There's a lot of debate about whether online video will ever get the respect it (allegedly) deserves or if it will forever remain the poor stepchild of TV.

As Jesse Jackson might say, "The question is moot."

That's because TV is "converging" with digital and pretty soon all video will be online video.

The TiVo/PayPal deal is a big step in that direction.

This is a great opportunity for marketers, but also has some inevitable perils.

The Pros

Pretty obvious. Marketers can now sell stuff directly from their TV spots. 

There's no better medium than video to tell a story or inspire behavior. While many talk about how ineffective banner ads are, the reality is that a lot of brands make a lot of money by placing then and driving to e-commerce opportunities. 

And banners do suck. So, if marketers can sell stuff and make money with banners despite their suckiness, imagine how well they should be able to do with video.

The PayPal thing is also a big deal. Right now, if I want to buy something through e-commerce, I have to get out my credit card, type in the number, blah, blah, blah. But if I'm using PayPal, I should be able to purchase with just a click or two. If I were PayPal, I'd go get a trademark on "p-commerce" to distinguish it from "e-commerce" (that one's on the house, guys).

The Cons

Clearly, marketers will salivate over the chance to add a measurable ROI to their TV ad buys. 

I believe this will inevitably lead to a broad collective mental lapse in marketers' understanding of the power of broadcast advertising. The lure of the spreadsheet will be too great. 

Awareness? Attitude? Intent? These will be objectives of the past, replaced my a nickel by nickel accounting of dollar spent to dollar gained.

Of course, there will be some clever marketers who realize that 90+% of purchases are still made within the walls of a brick-and-mortar store, but they will be mocked for not "getting it." 

Even as their company stock prices outpace the competition.

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