Here's one of the reasons why people don't like advertising, and has more than a hint of desperation about it. This kind of advertising is only going to add to the woes of the ailing 30 second spot.
A very high pitched electronic screech has been added to this tvc when the product is shown. Supposedly, the sound can only be heard by people about 20 and under, but it's been enhanced in this YouTube version.
This is going to do wonders for the KFC brand don't you think? Annoying people into buying products is a fantastic strategy. Sure, people will notice it, and even talk about it - but what will they be saying?
It's doing just about as good a job for KFC as this PR disaster:
You've most probably heard about Joost by now. If not, it's an new (currently in beta), free broadband tv service. The entrepreneurs behind Skype and Kazaa are behind the new venture, so it carries considerable clout to say the least. It's currently the second most popular search on Technorati, so interest in the service is already high.
Here's a little promotional explanation from the Joost site:
"Joost is a new way of watching TV on the internet. With Joost, you get all the things you love about TV, including a high-quality full-screen picture, hundreds of full-length shows and easy channel-flipping. You get great internet features too, such as search, chat and instant messaging, built right into the program. Joost is completely free, and works with most modern PCs and Intel Mac-based computers with a broadband connection."
Here's a video of V.P. David Clark giving a preview of the service:
Joost's Advertising Model:
There's an article over at adverlab (yes again, great resource) describing Joost's proposed advertising model. Apparently Joost aims to have as little as one minute of commercial time per hour, if current projections are correct. As far a advertising itself is concerned, they say they're aiming for quality, not volume and frequency.
Joost's model apparently includes five to seven second ads that pop-up when particular videos are selected, and mid-roll ads in videos over five minutes in length. The proposed model aims to have one brand sponsor per program. Like interactive web banners, users can also click through for information, offers and long-form content from advertisers. This second step really amounts to on-demand advertising.
One of Joost's stated priorities is a backend that can pinpoint a user's location, viewing time, viewing habits and opt-in profile information in order to serve up extremely targeted and hopefully much more relevant ads. For example, this could mean that advertisers will be able to target particular people in a particular suburb (post code) watching a particular program at a particular time. This is the type of targeting that broadcast tv would die for, so to speak.
So the question now is, if the popularity of Joost (or other services like it) explodes on the web, could this bring us a lot closer to the much discussed death of the standard 30 second tv commercial much sooner than (many agencies have) anticipated? Could this begin to take us down the path of quality on-demand advertising that users can either choose to view and interact with, or dismiss at will? What do you think?
Is the time right for the success of interactive tv delivered over the web?
While I'm on the theme of tv commercials, here's a funny Korean DHL ad. It's had 385,568 YouTube views in just 6 days. That makes it one of the most viewed videos of the week, not bad for an ad.
A new and unmistakably Australian Nestle Drumstick ad created by agency Publicis Mojo in Melbourne. It's been having a good run during some of those long, hot Australian Tennis Open days here.
I just can't curb my enthusiasm for the HBO tv show Curb Your Enthusisam. This show isn't new, it debuted in 2000. Since then Larry David has written 50 episodes over 5 seasons. I haven't seen all of the seasons yet, but over the long Australia Day weekend we rented the season 3 DVD (10 episodes).
For those of you who don't know, Curb Your Enthusiasm is written by Larry David who also co-created, wrote and executive produced Seinfeld. I must admit that when I first discovered this new show, I was a bit skeptical and didn't really think that Seinfeld could be topped, but after seeing just one episode by accident late one night, I was hooked.
I think Larry David is one of the best comic writers working today and he has cemented his place in comedy history with his great writing in these two groundbreaking shows.
I think what's really interesting about Curb Your Enthusiasm is that David wrote a detailed story and plan for each episode, but the comedy in each scene in every episode is totally improvised. This makes for some hilarious, unexpected, spontaneous, sometimes disturbing and agonising comedy moments.
If you haven't seen any of the shows yet, do yourself a favour and seek the series out. The show isn't for everyone, but it certainly is for me. It's one of the best show I've seen on tv, and I don't think it's an accident that it's funded by HBO. Two of my other favourite tv shows with great writing , The Sopranos, and Six Feet Under, came out of HBO. Love the opening titles to Six Feet Under by the way.
