TO: Companies Who Advertise on the Internet
FROM: A Concerned Viewer
DATE: August 5, 2011
cc: Television Networks
To Whom it May Concern:
Since producing the average television show is an expensive undertaking, it is understandable that television networks wish to sell time on their airwaves in the form of advertisements to defray those costs. Nothing in life is free, so it is also understandable that when those television networks make their shows available over the internet, they still wish to defray costs through advertising.
When a television network offers to sell you a slot that will have your 60 second ad play between each 6+ minute chunk of a 45 minute television show, this probably sounds like a great idea. Everyone will see your advertisement for the New! WhizBang! UberCool! Gadget! (or whatever you are selling), and they won’t see advertisements from anyone else.
However, I urge you to resist this offer. The purpose of advertising is to make me, the consumer, feel favorably towards you and/or your product, so that when I am in the market for a new Gadget, I want to spend my money on the New!WhizBang!UberCool! one. Unfortunately, if I have to watch the exact same 60 second ad more than once, it begins to inspire feelings of negativity. More than twice, and it frequently gives me the active desire to spend my money with any company except yours, because your ad is so bleepity-bleep annoying.
Thus, even when television networks are willing to sell you a deal where you can play the same ad over and over again, it’s not a good idea. You should instead spend your money on hiring clever people to create a clever ad, and allow some advertising competition. When I only see your clever ad once every third or fourth segment, it makes me compare it to all of those other ads that are decidedly not clever. That makes me look forward to your ad, and actually want to watch it. When I see your ad multiple times in a row, whether it is clever or not, I do not want to watch it. I instead mute it and do something else until the show I actually want to watch is back on.
Television Networks, you should also take note. When you set up annoying and repetitive advertising on purpose, it makes me not really want to expend the effort to watch your shows, which means your poorly-designed advertising gets one less captive audience member.
Sincerely,
Tired of All the Damn Ads
Heh. I pretty much just tune all ads out.
So, fun fact about me: if the television (or internet tv) is on, I am transfixed whether I want to watch it or not. I have never been able to tune anything out, and it has often meant I end up getting sucked into tv shows or movies I don’t even want to watch, just because someone else is watching them in the same room.
Even when I turn the volume way down and look at another webpage while I’m waiting for the ad to finish (or put it on mute), I’m still vaguely aware of it. It’s super annoying.
And thus, the birth of product placement…can’t tune it out or zoom past it without skipping the show.
Yeah, no kidding. On the plus side, if I’m willing to wait until I wake up in the morning, I can watch the Rachel Maddow Show from a podcast with no ads for free.
This is what kills me about Hulu. They play the same commercials over and over and over and over. I’d be totally all right with having even one or two more companies advertising on there, just so I didn’t have to see the same makeup commercials five times in the course of one show.