Never mind the youtube clips, here’s the real Cindy Sheehan ad

1. JimDavidson October 25, 2008

   Well, if you want an argument, ya came to the right place. The first ad in a set doesn’t require me to do anything to see and hear it, but the mute button gets pushed – it is SUCH a fun button. After that, yes, it does require an affirmative act to see or hear the ads. I have to come back from the fridge, and I have to unmute the television.

   Many videos have a character frame which displays even if you don’t hit play. So, that can be the ad taking up space on the screen in my favorite zine.

   There is no reason the ad cannot play when the page loads. Youtube videos are courteous in requiring user interest. But, that isn’t the only way to display short video. There are web sites that start playing a video as soon as I arrive at the site. (I hate that, but it happens.)

   I get a little bit of sneer Pascal, from your comment that running around with a handy cam filming the assistant manager is no way for mature advertising professionals to behave. But, you know what? Madison Avenue is having its implosion right alongside Wall Street. Technology changes everything.

   Gutenberg produced printed pages that could be bound together in folios. But, they weren’t properly “books” were they? No illuminated pages. No calligraphy. No scribe ever touched them during production, to get his chicken greased fingers on the pages. So, really, they weren’t properly books. You could *call* them books, but, really, a connoisseur knew the difference.

   Guess what? The market for illuminated pages was not very big. Deep but not broad, and it drained. Guess what? The market for hand calligraphy? Same. Hand tipped illustrations? Same. Oops.

   Web advertising is to print advertising as printed books are to illuminated pages. The analogy, like all analogies, is imperfect. But the time to eradication of illuminated pages was several hundred years. So, you’ll have a niche.
2. Pascal123 October 25, 2008

   Sorry for the cross-post but one other clarification:

   Opt-In Media, such as a YouTube fan film or fun video requires someone do something in order to view said media.

   Opt-Out Media, such as a TV or Radio ad or an online ad, requires someone do something to avoid viewing it.

   This is the simplest and most base reason Coca-Cola, Nike, Taco Bell, etc. don’t just stop wasting money buying TV time and run around with a handycam filming videos of their asst. brand managers talking in their living room and uploading them to YouTube (they do that too, of course, but don’t refer to those as “ads”).

   It’s also the simplest argument for not calling a YouTube fun video or fan film an “advertisement.” (Again, I’m speaking in general terms designed to engage a person of reasonable intelligence under socially normal circumstances. As it seems this caveat is required here: I concede it will be easy for someone who would like to engage in the strict rules of Lincoln-Douglas debate to argue why none of this is true, etc. etc.)
3. Pascal123 October 25, 2008

   does not consider to be an ad, since it is not broadcast length/quality

   or, in fact, an ad …
4. Spence October 25, 2008

   Not bad for a cookie cutter ad.

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