Good Commercials…

I’ve stated somewhere before that I love having a DVR.  I think it’s mainly for two reasons.  1.)  The ability to time shift my viewing habits and watch my favorite shows when I’m available to watch them.  2.)  The ability to fast forward through all the commercials.

I know the latter has commercial/advertising people concerned.  Corporations spend big dollars to advertise their brands and their products on tv.  On a positive note to the consumer, it’s the commercials that make the programming free.  (Unless you have cable I guess, but that’s a whole other topic.)

I’m curious to see how this develops as we move closer towards an “on demand” media world.  Networks putting shows on line to watch but the experience just doesn’t work for me.  Hopefully…eventually they’ll allow you to download their content (for free – like it is over the air) and watch it when and where you want to.  But I imagine the problem in their mind is control – if they put the content in the hands of the users they will fast forward or more then likely erase the commercial advertisements all together.  Just go on the pirate bay tomorrow and search for tonights episode of Lost – I imagine you can find a pristine HD version in a matter of hours.  It’s a shame users have to go that route to watch their favorite shows when they want too, but it shows the potential and capability the media moguls have to get their content in the hands of users.  If they were willing to change, or amend their distribution model a bit and be smart about it I think they could even make some more money out of it.  But let’s be honest…it’s not all the corporate media companies faults.  I think a lot of blame lies on the shoulders of the people creating the ads that people work hard to ignore.

Yesterday I had a few spare minutes and so I was messing around with my Iphone.  I went on youtube and watched a few videos.  I don’t watch it that often, but when I do I’m always impressed by the creativity expressed in the videos.  Yesterday for instance…I watched a 2 min 30 sec video of a company that created an air canon to blow out birthday candles from like 200 feet away.  It was great…I loved the excitement and energy from the people.  Then I got to thinking…Essentially, I just watched a 2 min 30 sec commercial on my own time, on purpose and the company didn’t have to pay a dime for airtime or really do anything special to get me to watch it.  They just made a good commercial.  Youtube is full of that stuff.

Which got me thinking…if companies make good, interesting, exciting, funny commercials I don’t mind watching them.  We all do it right…we enjoy watching the ads during the Superbowl.  Even while fast forwarding through commercials on my DVR if I see one interesting I’ll stop and watch it.  Maybe it’s a trailer to a movie that catches my attention, or my favorite Mac vs. PC adds.

There’s some untapped potential here that I think good make everyone happy.

Why I wrote about this today?  I have no idea.