Kill bad commercials
At the moment any viewer can choose to ignore TV commercials that irritate them by:
a) leaving the room for a pee
b) using our remote control to change channels
c) fast-forwarding through them with our TiVo-like thingies
But, the problem is that the advertisers don’t know we’re ignoring them because the data isn’t there so we (because we fit in the demographic being targeted) are extremely likely to see the same irritating commercial again before too very long. And we’ll go through A,B or C once more.
Being constantly exposed to bad commericals sours the bunch for all TV ads. As soon as one pops up that we dislike we most likely skip the rest of the commercial break, not bothering to find out if there were others in there that were actually worth watching. And over time we get used to thinking Tv commercials are irritating and so start to skip ALL commercial breaks.
This is precisely what has been happening over the past few years: viewers have learned to expect TV commercials to be bad and so have started to avoid them altogether. And advertisers (and their poor poor agencies) have been forced to try other “clever” techniques to reach us, in the strangest of places.
Of course the problem isn’t TiVo or the remote control. No more so than the problem is having a toilet nearby to pee in when the ads come on. And the problem isn’t that TV advertising doesn’t work - TV advertising can be incredibly effective. The problem is that bad ads are ruining it for everyone.
We all instintively know this, so I won’t labor the point, but I will offer a solution that might actually change the game so that BAD ads die and GOOD ads survive.
Imagine a TV remote control with a simple red button on it that says “Block.” If the viewer pushes this during a commercial then he or she will never be shown that commercial again. It will simply be blocked from his TV set. Over time, the more an individual viewer blocks commercials that don’t appeal to him or her, the more good commercials will remain.
My guess is that there will be a pretty consistent reaction across viewers to the same ads. For the most part people will agree on which ads are bad and which are good. And pretty quickly advertisers that are responsible for bad ads will discover they are wasting their money and will need to find ways to create commercials that people actually like. Now that’s a revolutionary thought.
Soon only good TV commercials will be shown and people will once more stay watching dutifully through the breaks because they like what they’re seeing, and will save their pee until the shitty network promos come on.
OK, so I know there are issues with this idea. For instance, if there are multiple people in a household, why should the taste of one of them affect the rest? And I’m not even sure it’s technologically possible…but my guess is it is.
I’m going to patent the idea, make my fortune, and save the advertising industry all in one fell swoop. What a hero.
