Football Season: Some people, including some of my co-workers, don’t understand why this is my favorite time of year. Yet, others are right there with me. It’s game time, and my weekends are now filled with watching my alma mater, the Oregon Ducks, play on Saturdays and the San Diego Chargers play on Sundays.

Along with football comes a bevy of new commercials for us advertising folk to applaud, mock or admire. During Monday’s college match-up, one such commercial caught my eye. The spot was for FLO TV, with the commercial using popular college football mascots to promote how this technology lets the user watch live football games via your mobile phone or in your car without streaming.

There were a lot of things I liked about the commercial. For starters, it was humorous and clever. It caught my attention. Commercials so rarely do this during a football game. It showed the big teams this year (although I did wonder why Alabama and Ohio State were missing) and I especially enjoyed the match-up between the Ducks and the Longhorns (may that be a sign we play one another in the BCS National Championships). In short, the spot clearly explained what the product does and where to go to buy it, which many commercials often lack. And best of all, it started a conversation. My friends and I talked about it during the game and later I shared the commercial with my co-workers and friends because it gave me such a great laugh.

The next day I was still thinking about this commercial, and the concept behind FLO TV,  and I couldn’t help but wonder about the technology’s target demographic. Since the product has the capability to watch numerous other things — movies, Disney Channel, Fox TV and more, I have to wonder if college football is their strongest selling point. As a marketer, I’m positive there was a lot of thought that went behind this media buy. Clearly the college football audience is large and passionate, and my guess is that their research must have indicated that at least a portion of their target market is people who like football.  So why not create a cleaver spot that’s made to match your target market and the media buy?

On the other hand, as a consumer, I felt confused to why FLO TV was trying to market this product to “fans that don’t want to miss a moment of action.” If you are a big football fan wouldn’t you be at a bar, restaurant or a friend’s house watching the game? It seems to me that the most avid football fans (aka people who would pay to watch football) would make it a priority to be somewhere where they could watch the game.  Furthermore, the mobile service is only available for a few select phones (not including a blackberry or iPhone) which would make it even less relevant for many college age or post grad consumers.

I don’t know what’s next for FLO TV’s commercials and media buys, but I’m hoping they focus on marketing to the family demographic. In my opinion, these are the people that will most likely invest the monthly fee so their kids watch their shows while they are trying to get their errands done. And since the service can be streamed into car TV’s (which many parents already have) this is something that could be an ideal distraction to the kids while mom or dad are trying to drive or load the groceries into the car.

All in all, I thought the commercial was entertaining, but I would be curious to know what kind of sales results it garnered. What do you think? Does this media buy makes sense to you? Would you have focused on a different demographic? And even more importantly, would you pay to use this feature on your mobile phone if all you wanted to do was watch a football game?