Rishad Tobaccowala of Starcom Mediavest Group is called a Media Strategist, but he also considers himself a "futurist," and perhaps with good reason. For over ten years he’s been able to correctly predict the most productive places for companies like P&G and General Motors to invest their advertising budgets, from internet sites to computer games. During the Advertising Week in New York last month he lectured the consultants who help big companies pick an agency on the prevailing laziness of an industry trying to keep old forms of advertising alive.

BusinessWeek: Hey, Advertisers, TiVo Is Your Friend.

Adapt to consumers’ changing behavior rather than try to cling to the status quo. People’s preference for consuming content when they want it will only grow, he says. He predicts 30% of U.S. homes will have DVRs in less than two years. Pair this preference for on-demand content with the ability to search for video on Google or Yahoo, download it over speedy broadband links, and zip it to the living room TV, and traditional TV schedules will be rendered meaningless.

Tobaccowala sees loads of opportunity in this new world. Think of how people get lost for hours surfing the Net now, he says. In the near future they’ll start doing that with flat-panel TVs in their living rooms. And advertisers will have much more information they can use to target particular viewers. Rather than knowing simply what percentage of 18- to 25-year-olds watch Desperate Housewives, they’ll be able to figure out which people watch, how frequently, and what they’ve been searching for recently on the Net.