I remember a time when we liked commercials. The one above had me buying 7-up even though I don’t like 7-up. As I kid I’d run to the TV and laugh out loud when one of the series of Alka Seltzer commercials featuring a man and his stomach came on.
In recent years (decades?) we’ve had to put up with so much advertising clutter, irrelevance, and interruption that we have come to hate advertising. Even as we love the “free” media that it affords. I am of the opinion that we need advertising, we want advertising, and we even like advertising — if done appropriately.
Farhad Manjoo, after enumerating the reasons why Web video ads are so annoying and repetitive, describes some fixes to make advertising work again:
The Internet lets advertisers track a viewer like me over time, noting which programs and ads I watch and which I ignore—technology that, in theory, should let companies show me ads tailored to my general tastes. Advertisers can also break with TV conventions. Instead of running three minute-long Viagra ads during 60 Minutes, Pfizer could have aired six 30-second spots in sequence, perhaps telling a story—of desire, loss, sadness, epiphany, and finally rejuvenation—over the course of the commercial breaks. If done well, this conceit would keep people watching; for Viagra, especially, advertising on the Web might be liberating, allowing for messages that are more suggestive and risqué than Pfizer could ever get away with on TV. And such creativity doesn’t come at a steep price. Audiences on the Web are used to low-fi video, found footage, and allusions to other stuff online. Corporations might take a page from the Obama campaign, which ran many cheaply produced Web ads that featured viral videos, old movies, man-on-the-street interviews shot by hand-held cameras, and sincere testimonials from real people. This last method could be especially fruitful; the best Web videos (think Numa Numa, the Star Wars kid, the laughing baby, or Evolution of Dance) are those that seem authentically surprising. Imagine a Viagra ad featuring real men talking about how Viagra has changed their lives—wouldn’t that get your attention over blue-tux guy?
In addition to Obama’s videos, I’d recommend that anyone looking to produce ads for the Web consult the Onion‘s video site. The satirical newspaper does two things well with the ads it runs alongside its hilarious videos. First, it puts the ad in the right place—they run after, rather than before, the Onion’s own content. Because the ad isn’t standing in the way of your video, it doesn’t annoy you as much—which is not only good for you, but good for the advertiser, too. The Onion can afford to do this because the ads it runs are pretty good—many reflect the Onion’s sense of humor, and are almost as entertaining as the videos themselves. This approach reflects how the Web works: It’s not important how many people see your ad, but how many people like your ad. If people respond positively to what you’re shilling, they’ll talk about the ad and pass it around; if people hate it, they’ll click away—or, worse, decide never to buy your wares. On the Web, there’s always something better to do than watch an ad.
Fortunately, a few others in the online video business are starting to figure this out. J.P. Colaco, Hulu’s senior vice president of advertising, told me that his company’s main goal is usability—the future of TV on the Web, he says, is fewer ads per show, with each advertiser paying high rates in order to target a compatible audience. Hulu is working with advertisers to reduce repetition; the company even has an in-house creative department to help advertisers come up with more Web-savvy ads, including ads that tell a story over a series of commercial breaks. Hulu is also developing algorithms to run ads that are tailored to your taste. As of now, each ad on Hulu features thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons. The buttons don’t do much now, but, in time, they will. If I click thumbs-down on every car ad, Hulu will realize I’m not interested in cars—and I’m not interested in that damned blue-tux guy, either.
RELATED: I don’t know whether this proves or disproves my “we-like-commercials” theory — Firebrand, a site launched last November backed by NBC, Microsoft, and Ion Television, carried commercials as content and aired a television show version of the site, tried to take advantage of “the nascent trend of ads as entertainment.” It lasted a brief 4 months before shutting down.
For those who love commercials veryfunnyads.com, part of the TBS cable network owned by Time Warner, and honeyshed.com, operated by the Droga5 unit of the Publicis Groupe, are still in business.