Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to U Forward Thinking,
Speaker 1: the podcast that looks at the future and says, anytime
Speaker 1: I need to see your face. That just closed my
Speaker 1: eyes and I'm taking to a place where your crystal
Speaker 1: mind and legenta feelings take up shelter in the base
Speaker 1: of my spine. Sweet like a chicken cherry color. I'm
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, and I'm Joe McCormick, and our other host,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel. Mom is not with us today, but she
Speaker 1: will be back next time. Yep. So we had to
Speaker 1: sit down, Joe and I sit down and decide what
Speaker 1: were are you going to talk about in the future,
Speaker 1: Like what what is the episode that we're going to
Speaker 1: look at and say, how is the Oh I'm sorry, wait,
Speaker 1: I'm being told I have to take a break right now.
Speaker 1: We got a little quick commercial. Do we need to
Speaker 1: throw too? Uh? And we'll be right back. No, I'm
Speaker 1: just kidding. Actually, we're gonna talk about the future of advertising.
Speaker 1: You know, I would like to talk about the future
Speaker 1: of advertising, but I am just sitting here stunned by
Speaker 1: the crisp, refreshing taste of coke. You know, As I
Speaker 1: was putting on my levies this morning and uh then
Speaker 1: slipping on a pair of Converse to make the long
Speaker 1: walk here, I was thinking advertising doesn't affect me. It's true,
Speaker 1: you know, though, Jonathan, when you make that long walk
Speaker 1: over to the office out in that hot sun, you
Speaker 1: really should stop and get a nice crisp bottle of
Speaker 1: De Sauny brand water. I'm glad you're sticking with the
Speaker 1: Coke brandst water for your lungs. Actually, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: for my lungs. If I'm gonna breathe in water, might
Speaker 1: as well make it do SAUNI right, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I will say this, here's a free plug. There is
Speaker 1: one one location I do legitimately have to force myself
Speaker 1: to walk past on my walk home, King of Pops,
Speaker 1: because the actual King of Pops office is on my
Speaker 1: way home, and you can buy King of Pops popsicles there.
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar. King of Pops is a quite
Speaker 1: popular popsicle stand in Atlanta. They got nice little carts
Speaker 1: wheel things around. They've got handmade popsicles that are delicious,
Speaker 1: and they did not pay us to say that. No.
Speaker 1: They also have a couple of locations like North Carolina
Speaker 1: and a couple of other places too. Yeah, they're they're phenomenal.
Speaker 1: So yeah, if you're ever in the city, guys and
Speaker 1: you you want to come visit how stuff works offices,
Speaker 1: we'd love to have you come by and see it,
Speaker 1: and then maybe we'll go and grab a King of
Speaker 1: pops popsicle. Yeah, they've what have they got. I'm not
Speaker 1: really a popsicle kind of guy, but Sea Salts they're big. One.
Speaker 1: The one I had was like a Chai tea popsicle.
Speaker 1: That's really good. They also have sweet tea and lemonade
Speaker 1: that's really good. That's strawberry margherita. We've you know, that's
Speaker 1: quite good. You know, we're advertising like crazy. Apparently the
Speaker 1: future of advertising is the show. Well, yeah, we should
Speaker 1: go ask them for money now, all right, Well that's
Speaker 1: probably not how it works, and no, no, it's not
Speaker 1: how it works. But we wanted to talk about the
Speaker 1: future of advertising because this is one of those things
Speaker 1: that has become it's especially here in the United States,
Speaker 1: has become something that's really integrated into multiple parts of
Speaker 1: our lives, sometimes intrusively, where attention is brought to it
Speaker 1: and there's a negative reaction. Sometimes it's worked in two
Speaker 1: ways so subtle that you might not even be consciously
Speaker 1: aware of it. And where are we going from here? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So let's start with what I would state as sort
Speaker 1: of the fundamental conflict of the nature of advertising today,
Speaker 1: which is that everybody knows what ads are. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not a secret anymore. You're you're aware of the
Speaker 1: fact that businesses want you to be one aware of
Speaker 1: their products and services, to to have positive impressions of
Speaker 1: their products and services, and three to have sort of
Speaker 1: like drive or motivation to go out and spend your
Speaker 1: dollars on what they have to sell, right, whether it
Speaker 1: is to do it immediately or whenever you are in
Speaker 1: mind of pursuing that particular type of goods or service, right, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: they might be wanting to make you go out and
Speaker 1: buy it right now, or just kind of plant a
Speaker 1: seed in your brain so that so that it will
Speaker 1: sprout into a tree of money dollars later exactly. But
Speaker 1: so there's a sort of conflict here, which is that
Speaker 1: ads are the financial fuel that makes free content possible.
Speaker 1: I mean, so by free I mean stuff like TV
Speaker 1: shows and uh, and open web content like websites that
Speaker 1: you use that you don't have to pay to access,
Speaker 1: or podcasts, yeah, podcasts, anything like that. Without ads, these
Speaker 1: things wouldn't exist. There would be no way to pay
Speaker 1: the people who make them. They'd have to get jobs
Speaker 1: doing something else. It's just you know, you'd probably the
Speaker 1: only free content would be I guess what people just
Speaker 1: make in their spare time as hobbies, right, it would
Speaker 1: be It would be things that people are so passionate
Speaker 1: about that they are paying for the ability to put
Speaker 1: it out there for other people to enjoy and there
Speaker 1: and ultimately in the grand scheme of things, that is
Speaker 1: unsupportable because only a very few people would ever be
Speaker 1: able to do that on an extended basis. Right, So
Speaker 1: ads make open content possible. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: most people don't really want to watch ads. They might
Speaker 1: not have a really strong aversion, but they just they
Speaker 1: just rather spend their time doing something else. Well, they
Speaker 1: might want to continue the content that they're already pursuing, Like, uh,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're reading an article in a magazine
Speaker 1: and you turn the page and it's an AD, and
Speaker 1: you realize you have to go to the next page
Speaker 1: to to continue the article. That can be frustrating if
Speaker 1: you're watching a television show. Heck, TV shows are designed
Speaker 1: so that the moment just before the ad break is
Speaker 1: essentially like a mini cliffhanger. In most cases, they have
Speaker 1: to try to keep you on the hook to make
Speaker 1: sure that you don't change the channel, right, ads are
Speaker 1: on right, you have to stay there through the ad
Speaker 1: break so that when it comes back, you're still there.
Speaker 1: So that's an incentive for you to stay. And I
Speaker 1: mean it actually in that case, In that way, ads
Speaker 1: are directly affecting the style of the content. The con
Speaker 1: has been uh shaped partially because of advertisements, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: I know, like people who get DVRs or people who
Speaker 1: wait until a series is available on DVD or on
Speaker 1: Netflix or something like that, one of the things they
Speaker 1: talk about really enjoying is the ability to view these
Speaker 1: series without the interruption of ads. And that's a problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and that also highlights how you know, of course,
Speaker 1: there are other models for how content can be paid for.
Speaker 1: You can pay to view it or pay to own
Speaker 1: it like you would with like a movie or something.
Speaker 1: So that doesn't mean all movies are necessarily add free.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they want to supplement their budget by placing a
Speaker 1: few products in there or something. Sometimes it's subtle, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it's incredibly blatant. Right, um, But so yeah, ads
Speaker 1: make the content that we like and consume possible, and
Speaker 1: we generally put up with it. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: get mad when an ad pre rolls before a YouTube video,
Speaker 1: but a lot of times I will switch over to
Speaker 1: another tab while that ads running, or I'll or I'll
Speaker 1: wait till a little skip thing pops up and I'll
Speaker 1: skip it. Yeah. Yeah, I've done the same. I mean
Speaker 1: there's some However, there are times where I've gone to
Speaker 1: a uh YouTube channel, for example, something that I really enjoy,
Speaker 1: and I think, no, I'm letting this ad play out
Speaker 1: because I legitimately like what this person is producing and
Speaker 1: I want to create the incentive for them to produce more,
Speaker 1: want them to get that cents. Yeah, and knowing that
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of things, my one view is insignificant,
Speaker 1: but I hope that other people are doing the same
Speaker 1: so that the person who's making the stuff I enjoy
Speaker 1: continues to have a reason to make the stuff I enjoy.
Speaker 1: So and that's that's what we wanted to make clear
Speaker 1: from the get go. Joe and I both are not
Speaker 1: anti advertisement. We think that ads provide a valuable service
Speaker 1: for multiple reasons. One, I mean, there are products I
Speaker 1: would never have been aware of had there not been
Speaker 1: ads for them, products that I use all the time,
Speaker 1: like stuff I buy regularly, and and the reason why
Speaker 1: I know about them is because I heard an AD
Speaker 1: or I saw an AD, and that that has led
Speaker 1: to a benefit to me personally. So there's a benefit.
Speaker 1: I work in an industry where we have we work
Speaker 1: on the web. We wouldn't have jobs without we wouldn't
Speaker 1: have jobs without ads, So I benefit from that way
Speaker 1: as well. So uh, and then you know, the advertisers
Speaker 1: benefit if if in fact their ads are effective, because
Speaker 1: they can move whatever the product is. So we're not
Speaker 1: anti ad, we're anti bad advertisement, right, We're anti intrusive
Speaker 1: advertisement that ends up being speak for yourself, intrusive things.
Speaker 1: So when you go to a website and you have
Speaker 1: an auto play video pop up over on top of
Speaker 1: whatever it is you're trying to want, when it starts
Speaker 1: making sound, and it starts making sound, is the worst
Speaker 1: feeling when you've got thirty six tabs open and one
Speaker 1: of them starts making sound, You're like, which one right, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you're you know, sometimes when we're researching these podcasts
Speaker 1: will be we'll be looking at multiple resources and sometimes
Speaker 1: it will be some media coverage of a story, and
Speaker 1: you know, you know, you guys know you've been to
Speaker 1: media sites. There are a lot of media sites out there.
Speaker 1: When you open it up, it has a typed article
Speaker 1: as well as an embedded video, and there are some
Speaker 1: more than a few media outlets out there that have
Speaker 1: those set not a play And then you open up
Speaker 1: all these stabs and like you were saying, Joe, one
Speaker 1: of them starts playing like oh't know, and then you
Speaker 1: have to play hunt the video. When I'm out competing
Speaker 1: in a triathlonshing taste of Coca Cola. This is where
Speaker 1: we point out we live in Atlanta, where you know,
Speaker 1: if we don't mention coca cola and every few podcasts
Speaker 1: we get punished. So anyway, uh, yeah, it's this is
Speaker 1: that's a that's an extreme example, right of a terrible
Speaker 1: advertisement that that is more than more than uh not
Speaker 1: going to irritate the person rather than entice them. Uh,
Speaker 1: I mean you're you're guaranteed to get a lot more
Speaker 1: views that way, but that doesn't mean the views are valuable, right,
Speaker 1: And so there's always this give and take in how
Speaker 1: you design ads and what you do with them. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're you're trying to manage the audience's reaction, manage how
Speaker 1: many audience members are going to see it, how they
Speaker 1: feel about it when they see it. And then you're
Speaker 1: also competing with the fact that most of us don't
Speaker 1: really want to watch ads. We're not going to go
Speaker 1: out of our way to watch ads. So you know,
Speaker 1: how do you make sure that you're still getting exposure
Speaker 1: to especially to the right kind of audience, the people
Speaker 1: that you think would buy your product, and you want
Speaker 1: to see these ads. So there's this back and forth
Speaker 1: going on all the time. People are savvy about like
Speaker 1: when commercials are going to come on on the TV.
Speaker 1: They've come up with devices like TVO and stuff to
Speaker 1: skip over them, or they you know, or they just
Speaker 1: wait until they can they can watch it, I don't know,
Speaker 1: pirated or either DVD or something like or something. Yeah. Yeah. Likewise,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who work on the web, programming, advertising,
Speaker 1: and they're starting to notice, Oh, a lot of people
Speaker 1: just don't click on display ads. You know, you can
Speaker 1: run ads on the side of a website and and
Speaker 1: and and the you know runners on the top or
Speaker 1: bottom of a page, that kind of stuff. Sure, and
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who are afraid, like, oh,
Speaker 1: well I can I can put that there. But people
Speaker 1: just know that they've started to learn where those things
Speaker 1: are going to be on the site, and they just
Speaker 1: they automatically tune it out. They don't pay attention to
Speaker 1: add blindness. Yeah, yeah, you just you don't even bother
Speaker 1: looking at the banners or the sides or anything. And
Speaker 1: that's why you see these different kinds of ads emerging.
Speaker 1: Like in the past years, we've seen the the YouTube
Speaker 1: pre roll ads come in as a thing when they say, well,
Speaker 1: somebody wants to watch a video, they've got to watch
Speaker 1: the ad before the video starts, or all kinds of
Speaker 1: other things that are part of the science of advertising
Speaker 1: people trying to figure out how to get you to
Speaker 1: pay attention. And then there are the piece is of
Speaker 1: content that are designed so it looks like it's you know,
Speaker 1: uh of a YouTube video or TV episode or whatever,
Speaker 1: but turns out to be just an ad. Uh. If
Speaker 1: that's not done very very well, then very likely you
Speaker 1: end up getting a very negative reaction from that because
Speaker 1: people feel like they've been tricked into watching a commercial
Speaker 1: and people don't like that. I mean that no one
Speaker 1: likes to be tricked right there, Like, just be just
Speaker 1: be upfront about it, because unless it's unless it's a
Speaker 1: pleasant surprise, then it ends up just being irritating. And
Speaker 1: there are ways where you can create a compelling, uh
Speaker 1: interesting AD that is in fact its own kind of content.
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example, uh, even though it's an
Speaker 1: AD for something that no longer exists. Pt the playable
Speaker 1: trailer that was released on PlayStation four. It was a
Speaker 1: playable trail alert that was ultimately discovered to be an
Speaker 1: AD for Silent Hills, the game that Giamma del Toro
Speaker 1: was working on before that whole thing got mixed, and
Speaker 1: that did have kind of an advantage going in of
Speaker 1: like a built in audience that was the fans of
Speaker 1: the previous games. But but when it first came out,
Speaker 1: the most of the people who were playing it weren't
Speaker 1: even aware that it was itself an ad a trailer.
Speaker 1: It was it was its own experience, and then at
Speaker 1: the end it turned out to be a trailer, and
Speaker 1: it was one of those experiences that told you this
Speaker 1: was really creepy and really effective, and if this is
Speaker 1: an example of the sort of stuff that's going to
Speaker 1: come out with this other game, I can't wait for
Speaker 1: this other game to come out. So that was an
Speaker 1: amazing example of an AD that was designed in such
Speaker 1: a way to not look like an AD and yet
Speaker 1: was effective. Most of the time, that doesn't happen most
Speaker 1: of the time. If an AD is designed to look
Speaker 1: like something else, people end up getting ticked off that
Speaker 1: they were quote unquote tricked into watching an AD. So
Speaker 1: that's certainly something to be careful of. One of the
Speaker 1: things I think we'll definitely see in the future. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's something that I think we're gonna see more of.
Speaker 1: We're already seeing it now, is more targeted advertising. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this is one other way that ads have advanced
Speaker 1: recently that they've started to say, hey, we can figure
Speaker 1: out data about who's going to be looking somewhere at
Speaker 1: any given time and give them ads that we think
Speaker 1: would be especially effective on them. So one way you'll
Speaker 1: probably notice this is the ads that show up for
Speaker 1: you on Facebook. Right, if you use Facebook, you are
Speaker 1: getting targeted ads that are based on who you are.
Speaker 1: There's somebody out there with an algorithm who says people
Speaker 1: who have your interests, who are of your you know,
Speaker 1: like age, uh, sex, you know region, all these different
Speaker 1: facts about you. They think I can decide exactly what
Speaker 1: this person needs to see. Now, sometimes it it's weird
Speaker 1: and it doesn't make sense. Yeah, I I've I've received
Speaker 1: ads for things it I'm like, who did they think
Speaker 1: I am? I remember that I used to get this
Speaker 1: one all the time. It was just a picture of
Speaker 1: a gun and it said like join swat, Like they
Speaker 1: were trying to get me to enlist in some kind
Speaker 1: of police academy to become a member of a swat team.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what that was about. In my case,
Speaker 1: it was a photoshopped image of an insanely muscular body builder.
Speaker 1: And I've gotten that. Yeah, that's the That's a popular
Speaker 1: one that pops up on mine. And I'm like, have
Speaker 1: I ever done anything that tells you I'm remotely interested
Speaker 1: in lifting anything heavy? Like I usually look for excuses
Speaker 1: like I think, you know what if I just aim
Speaker 1: for Downhill, It'll take care of it itself. Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can see the appeal of lifting a heavy plate
Speaker 1: of nachos. Yeah, that's about it. I'm with you. I'm
Speaker 1: with you on that one, Joe. So, targeted advertising obviously
Speaker 1: is very attractive to advertisers because it gives at least
Speaker 1: the potential for a greater return you're going to see
Speaker 1: if you are if you are setting out to engage
Speaker 1: an audience that you have predetermined is more disposed to
Speaker 1: purchasing those types of goods and services than you have
Speaker 1: a better chance of success as a consumer. Assuming the
Speaker 1: targeted advertising is working properly, it can work to your
Speaker 1: favor as well, because you will end up seeing things
Speaker 1: that would be pertinent to you. Sure, I mean, if
Speaker 1: targeted advertising works as it's intended, it actually should work
Speaker 1: out for you really because it should be showing you
Speaker 1: things that you actually want to buy, right Like, it
Speaker 1: should be able to figure out what you're willing to
Speaker 1: spend money on and would feel good about doing so,
Speaker 1: right and right now. I would say that targeted advertising
Speaker 1: is in it's in a transitional period. So if you
Speaker 1: look at traditional advertising with magazines, radio, television, Uh, the
Speaker 1: advertisers would again look at the demographics of the audience
Speaker 1: for that particular channel or or you know, television series
Speaker 1: or radio program or whatever it was. And of course
Speaker 1: we're all individuals. We know that's kind of a crude metric,
Speaker 1: but maybe it was better than nothing, right, And so
Speaker 1: it was in a way, even then, it was still
Speaker 1: targeted advertising. It's just it was kind of the you know,
Speaker 1: net approach as opposed to a very refined like targeted approach. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then with the period we're in now, we're looking
Speaker 1: still at demographics, but we're looking at narrower slices of demographics.
Speaker 1: And then in the future, we're expecting to see a
Speaker 1: lot of personalized advertising where it's going to be based
Speaker 1: specifically on you and your likes and dislikes and behavior,
Speaker 1: something more akin to the Facebook thing you're talking about,
Speaker 1: or on Amazon where you get the suggested items because
Speaker 1: of your previous buying habit. It shows you stuff you've
Speaker 1: looked at but not bought on Amazon, so it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: remember this thing you were thinking about buying or still there,
Speaker 1: or shows you related objects to the thing, like you know,
Speaker 1: you bought this one thing. Other people who bought that
Speaker 1: one thing, also these other things? Are you sure you
Speaker 1: don't want these other things too? Of course, the kink
Speaker 1: in that system is if you're like me and most
Speaker 1: of the stuff you look at on Amazon is just
Speaker 1: looking at because it's funny, not stuff because you're playing.
Speaker 1: But like the products that have the ridiculously funny Amazon
Speaker 1: reviews written for him, Yeah, I love those, Like you
Speaker 1: find some ridiculous item on Amazon and people will people
Speaker 1: really take it as as as their their attempt to
Speaker 1: exercise their poetic license and create the most amazing reviews ever.
Speaker 1: But yeah, more targeted ads and personalized ads are probably
Speaker 1: in the future now. Granted, we've already seen examples of
Speaker 1: companies doing this and having missteps right where they've identified
Speaker 1: people and revealed that the behaviors of that person were
Speaker 1: more revealing about their personal situations than you might otherwise
Speaker 1: have anticipated. So, in other words, like your actions have
Speaker 1: told this company things about you that might not be
Speaker 1: tied directly to your identity, but tied directly to your
Speaker 1: personal situation. And that's an example. Okay, so here's the
Speaker 1: classic one. I won't name the company because I mean
Speaker 1: it's been talked about a billion times anyway, But there
Speaker 1: was an instant instance where you have a company that
Speaker 1: identified that a particular customer, based upon behaviors, was pregnant
Speaker 1: and sent coupons to that customer, uh, electronic coupons to
Speaker 1: that customer that had to do with pregnancy. The father
Speaker 1: of this customer, who was a young lady I was
Speaker 1: offended that these these coupons were insinuating this daughter was pregnant,
Speaker 1: and so he wrote and complained to the company saying,
Speaker 1: you know, how dare you do this? Uh, you're you're
Speaker 1: casting aspersions upon my young daughter. And then of course
Speaker 1: it turned out that in fact his young daughter was
Speaker 1: pregnant but had not yet told her father, and so
Speaker 1: us led to a very difficult situation for that family. Certainly,
Speaker 1: I mean that was well, this kind of means how
Speaker 1: targeted advertising, if not done right, could be a violation
Speaker 1: of the users privacy. Right, Yeah, And and it's it
Speaker 1: wasn't the intent of the company to do such a thing,
Speaker 1: you know. The intent of the company was, here's an
Speaker 1: opportunity to to make some more sales. This is a
Speaker 1: question on new life. Well, and this was a person
Speaker 1: who was clearly interested in it because her browsing habits
Speaker 1: had indicated that. So it's not like they were making
Speaker 1: just a shot in the dark, right That this was
Speaker 1: someone who was actively looking for information and the company
Speaker 1: was responding to it in a way that they thought
Speaker 1: was being proactive and it turned out to be overreaching.
Speaker 1: But it does definitely illustrate that there are ways of
Speaker 1: doing this that can be if at best problematic and
Speaker 1: at worst disastrous. Yeah, and so I think we can
Speaker 1: both agree that targeted advertising is going to get more
Speaker 1: and more were targeted, It's going to get just basically
Speaker 1: because the systems that surround us throughout our lives are
Speaker 1: going to know more and more about us and understand
Speaker 1: what to make of more and more that data all
Speaker 1: the time. So what does the future of targeted advertising
Speaker 1: look like? Well, the future could be integrated directly to
Speaker 1: our day to day experiences. The Wall Street Journal had
Speaker 1: an article about how mass marketing was dying, it was
Speaker 1: going extinct, and the idea was more about this targeted
Speaker 1: and personalized advertising, which wasn't necessarily just personalized to to
Speaker 1: you Joe. You know what makes Joe Joe. We're going
Speaker 1: to send ads to Joe, but more, but more about
Speaker 1: what Joe is specifically doing at that time. Right, So
Speaker 1: it's not even just you, it's you in this moment. Right.
Speaker 1: So the examples that they gave, here's a good one
Speaker 1: that that was in the article. Uh, let's say you're
Speaker 1: driving down the road and you're starting to get to
Speaker 1: a point where Okay, you are driving down Beuford Highway.
Speaker 1: You just got some delicious Korean tacos. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: you're driving down Beufford Highway, got some delicious Korean tacos.
Speaker 1: You're heading back to the east side of town, which
Speaker 1: is where you live. Uh, Beufford Highways of course in
Speaker 1: the northeast, So you're gonna have to go southwest to
Speaker 1: hit the perimeter, take that around, unless you're gonna go
Speaker 1: all the way down into town and then take twenty out.
Speaker 1: But we're not gonna bother what the details there. At
Speaker 1: any rate, you're taking the road, your gas your gas
Speaker 1: is getting down to like, oh, let's say it's a
Speaker 1: less than a quarter of a tank, and your your
Speaker 1: card detects that the gases at this level and sends
Speaker 1: a message to you saying, hey, you probably want to
Speaker 1: refill your gas before you drive, because there's gonna be
Speaker 1: some traffic. You don't know how long it's gonna you're
Speaker 1: gonna be stuck there. You should probably refill. There's a
Speaker 1: gas station, uh half a mile up on the right
Speaker 1: side that would be really useful to you. Now it
Speaker 1: may be that the reason you hear about that specific
Speaker 1: gas station is because that gas station is an advertiser
Speaker 1: that has worked along with the system that is integrated
Speaker 1: into your car, so that you get the alert for
Speaker 1: that specific gas station. There might be another gas station
Speaker 1: that's on the left that would be fine too, but
Speaker 1: you have the specific indication that there's one coming up
Speaker 1: on the right, so you can go and refill. And
Speaker 1: that's a moment of opportunity that could be uh, could
Speaker 1: be exploited or uh, you know, cashed in on however
Speaker 1: you want to think about it, but ultimately it's something
Speaker 1: that you would need to do anyway. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: Or another one that seems quite possible is we've talked
Speaker 1: before about the possibility of something like a smart fridge.
Speaker 1: So imagine a future where all the products you buy
Speaker 1: at the grocery store, all the refrigerated ones at least,
Speaker 1: are r f i D tagged, so that when you
Speaker 1: put them in the fridge, the fridge recognizes like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just got a you know, gallon of milk on
Speaker 1: this day, at this time, and it went into fridge. Now,
Speaker 1: imagine you're at the store and you can't remember if
Speaker 1: you have fresh milk in the fridge or not. Your
Speaker 1: fridge could send you an alert on your phone saying like, well,
Speaker 1: the last time you put milk in the fridge was
Speaker 1: a gallon forty seven days ago, probably not fresh. You
Speaker 1: might you might need more milk. I don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever had a gallon of milk lass that long. Joe, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to know what you do with that milk.
Speaker 1: But anyway, sip at a gallon, just like like just
Speaker 1: milk and hang it from one finger, take a sip
Speaker 1: every now and then. Yeah. Anyway, uh so, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: would be useful information when you're at the store. But
Speaker 1: what if you couple that with some kind of like
Speaker 1: advertisers supported network. Obviously, advertisers would want to be able
Speaker 1: to say, Oh, this person is at the store and
Speaker 1: they know they need milk, why don't you get this
Speaker 1: brand of milk? Yeah, And it could even be that
Speaker 1: you get home and you know you you're you could
Speaker 1: at proactive messages saying all right, you, you've bought these
Speaker 1: four items several times in the past, and they are
Speaker 1: now currently running low, they're almost out, or they're almost
Speaker 1: expired or whatever. Here are some coupons for those items.
Speaker 1: Because we know that you bought them in the past,
Speaker 1: you'll probably buy them in the future. This is another
Speaker 1: incentive for you to do so, and you go out
Speaker 1: and you buy them again. It's kind of like kind
Speaker 1: of like the same sort of benefits you would get
Speaker 1: from being a getting a customer loyalty card something along
Speaker 1: those lines. The stuff that's being integrated into digital wallets,
Speaker 1: it's very much the same sort of strategies. The idea of, well,
Speaker 1: we we have established these particular customer behaviors, let's reinforce
Speaker 1: those behaviors and continue to sell the goods and services
Speaker 1: that these companies are providing. And if everything is done well,
Speaker 1: then it benefits everybody, right, because the customer is happy,
Speaker 1: because the customer has the opportunities to buy the things
Speaker 1: that he or she needs. The advertisers are happy because
Speaker 1: the client are selling the stuff they want to sell,
Speaker 1: and so therefore the clients are happy. Too. That's the
Speaker 1: ideal situation. Uh, it won't always work out that way.
Speaker 1: What if you go out and you buy something. You
Speaker 1: know you've got a recipe and it's calling for something
Speaker 1: that you normally don't buy, but you go out and
Speaker 1: you buy it, you put in the fridge, the fridge
Speaker 1: recognizes you've bought that thing, and then you're just constantly
Speaker 1: getting messages to buy more of that. And it turns
Speaker 1: out the recipe didn't work out, it was a disaster,
Speaker 1: and you're never going to use that again. That could
Speaker 1: be that could be an annoyance, right, so hopefully you
Speaker 1: would have I mean, it's not going to ruin your life,
Speaker 1: but it could be. It could be mildly annoying. Would
Speaker 1: be like spam. It would be essentially the equivalent of spam,
Speaker 1: saying well, I'm not going to buy that, and yet
Speaker 1: I keep getting messages about that's spam. So hopefully there
Speaker 1: would be a means of building things into their saying,
Speaker 1: all right, this one thing I bought was a total mistake.
Speaker 1: I never want to buy it again. Don't send me
Speaker 1: messages about it. Uh, there would hopefully be some sort
Speaker 1: of way of building that in. Now, granted that would
Speaker 1: probably receive some resistance from the side of advertisers, but
Speaker 1: ultimately it might be the best thing to provide to
Speaker 1: make consumers more ready to adopt that kind of approach, right,
Speaker 1: because I mean, I would hate to think, Oh, I
Speaker 1: you know, like, for example, I do not enjoy I
Speaker 1: don't tend to drink a lot of soft drinks. I
Speaker 1: very occasionally do, and so I wouldn't tend to buy them.
Speaker 1: You drink gallons of milk instead, not all at once?
Speaker 1: Are you? How is a gallon of milk last forty
Speaker 1: seven days? For you? Joe? To me just a hypothetical example,
Speaker 1: I've ever bought a gallon of milk? Good Lord, I
Speaker 1: can go through a gallon of milk in like four days. Um,
Speaker 1: but I drink almond milk now, so I don't drink
Speaker 1: milk milk anymore, but at any rate. Uh. So, let's
Speaker 1: say let's say that I buy um soft drinks for
Speaker 1: a party, because I'm going to have a party. Uh.
Speaker 1: First of all, the soft drink is gonna set in
Speaker 1: my fridge forever because no one ever comes to my parties.
Speaker 1: But but you know, if I kept getting messages about
Speaker 1: buying soft drinks, that would be irritating to me. So
Speaker 1: that's definitely something that needs to be worked out as well.
Speaker 1: Otherwise we fall into the same traps that we fall
Speaker 1: in with traditional advertising, or maybe not traditional but web advertising. Um.
Speaker 1: But the whole reason for this is because the traditional approaches,
Speaker 1: while they could get in front of a lot of people,
Speaker 1: you couldn't really be sure how effective. They were. So
Speaker 1: if I put an ad a national spot at uh
Speaker 1: in a show that has a pretty high ratings, so
Speaker 1: it's a show that a lot of people are watching.
Speaker 1: If you buy a super Bowl commercial, that's the ultimate
Speaker 1: example here in the United States, right buy because I
Speaker 1: mean well, super Bowl commercials are almost their own thing
Speaker 1: because there's like a there's like a perceived competition to
Speaker 1: create the most entertaining super Bowl comment. Never mind you
Speaker 1: you you take out a spot to run a commercial
Speaker 1: on a rerun of Friends, there we go. That's that's
Speaker 1: a good example. You know there's gonna be people watching,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's one of those things. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot of folks, a lot of eyeballs on
Speaker 1: that screen. So you know that you're going to reach
Speaker 1: potentially a large audience, But you don't know how many
Speaker 1: of those you're going to engage with that commercial, Like,
Speaker 1: you don't know how many people are really going to
Speaker 1: be paying attention, who are going to be affected by it,
Speaker 1: who are going to act upon it. So ultimately, you're
Speaker 1: the value of your commercial is largely placed upon the
Speaker 1: value of the show you've put it against um, unless
Speaker 1: you happen to create one of those rare commercials where
Speaker 1: people talk about it later and there's a buzz about it,
Speaker 1: in which case you know, you're like, excellent, that's the
Speaker 1: dream right there, to have a commercial that gets legs
Speaker 1: beyond when you air it and then like it has
Speaker 1: an appeal of its own, Yeah, and hopefully it translates
Speaker 1: into more sales. I mean, obviously, if you're an advertiser
Speaker 1: and you're not in your ads are not translating into sales,
Speaker 1: you're not going to be in business us forever because
Speaker 1: clients are gonna say, well, we're gonna go with someone
Speaker 1: else because we're not We're not actually seeing an improvement
Speaker 1: here in our our sales figures. So I think of
Speaker 1: like commercials that got buzz or or seemed to get
Speaker 1: a positive response, uh, the one that that springs to
Speaker 1: mind in among my circle of friends were the series
Speaker 1: of old spice commercials because it was just so weird
Speaker 1: and had a very quirky sense of humor which was
Speaker 1: so different from everything else that was out there at
Speaker 1: the time. And um, I don't know how it translated
Speaker 1: into sales, but it certainly was one of those things
Speaker 1: that people found entertaining all on its own. So that's
Speaker 1: mass marketing and the approach. But if you look at
Speaker 1: the web version, you can see how effective those ads
Speaker 1: are because you see how many people click on stuff.
Speaker 1: Right if people are not clicking click through rage, Yeah,
Speaker 1: click through is valuable in the sense that, yes, it
Speaker 1: shows how valuable advertising is, but it's also incredibly destructive
Speaker 1: because it also shows how valuable advertising is, which means
Speaker 1: that if the advertising isn't valuable, then the whole model
Speaker 1: falls through, right, Like, how do you justify uh, getting
Speaker 1: advertising dollars spent on a on a on a particular
Speaker 1: show if the ads aren't driving people to actually purchase things?
Speaker 1: And this was this is one of those things we've
Speaker 1: seen Teeter Totter throughout the history of the web, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we saw some web pages because the traffic that they
Speaker 1: were getting were commanding incredibly high advertising rates to run
Speaker 1: an add on those pages. Uh, and then others were
Speaker 1: having very low rates for theirs. So you can have
Speaker 1: the same ad running on two different websites and have
Speaker 1: it being having a much larger payout for one versus
Speaker 1: the other just because of the traffic. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: of course there there are other metrics that are much
Speaker 1: much harder to measure or maybe even impossible to measure
Speaker 1: with how successful something like a piece of web advertising
Speaker 1: could be. Because you might have a successful piece of
Speaker 1: web advertising that people don't click on. Instead, it's successful
Speaker 1: because it creates a positive impression or a positive association.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think a whole lot of advertising works
Speaker 1: this way. Like you're not even um, it's not that
Speaker 1: people are saying, Oh, I need to buy some deodorant
Speaker 1: right now, I'll click on this ad. Instead, they see
Speaker 1: an ad for your brand of deodorant on a site
Speaker 1: they really like, and they form a positive association in
Speaker 1: their mind, and then then maybe in the future when
Speaker 1: they're going to go buy something in the store, they
Speaker 1: have that nice feeling about your brandy and that you know,
Speaker 1: that's a long game to play. The problem from the
Speaker 1: the the financial side is it's very hard to to
Speaker 1: create the causal relationship. How do you figure out if
Speaker 1: that's working. Yeah, so if you can't be certain that
Speaker 1: it's working, then it's hard to put a value on
Speaker 1: that advertisement. You know, it's it's hard to get to
Speaker 1: that point where you say, how much is the opportunity
Speaker 1: or our our service to be shown on your service?
Speaker 1: How how valuable is that? And it's really hard to
Speaker 1: answer that question. You would think it would be easier
Speaker 1: with web based advertising them in mass marketing, because again,
Speaker 1: you can at least see engagement in web. Now, there
Speaker 1: might be a spike in sales after a television spot
Speaker 1: runs on a popular program like let's let's go back
Speaker 1: to the super Bowl, because that is the big example
Speaker 1: in the United States. Let's say there's an incredible commercial
Speaker 1: for some product out there that just really captures imaginations
Speaker 1: and then you see a spike in sales. It's, you know,
Speaker 1: somewhat logical to to draw a line from one to
Speaker 1: the other, but it may be there are other factors
Speaker 1: that were at play and that the causation is not
Speaker 1: as direct as it appears. Right, So you can't be
Speaker 1: sure even in that traditional world that the ads are
Speaker 1: what led to the increase in sales, and in our
Speaker 1: current world, you can't be sure. So then that starts
Speaker 1: bringing up the question of well, how do we figure
Speaker 1: out how valuable this is? Like, how do how do
Speaker 1: we get to a fair point where the amount that
Speaker 1: is paid by the advertiser to the service makes sense
Speaker 1: and allows the the service to or like you know,
Speaker 1: the content creator however you want to put it, allows
Speaker 1: them to actually create the stuff they want to create. Well,
Speaker 1: I've got a few scenarios I'd like to talk about
Speaker 1: that might be part of the future of advertising. So
Speaker 1: the first one I want to bring up is, so
Speaker 1: we've talked about add subsidized content. You know that there's
Speaker 1: content that you can view for free or at a
Speaker 1: reduced price because it has been totally or partially paid
Speaker 1: for by ad dollars. What about add subsidized hardware. This
Speaker 1: is something I think we've seen come up with a
Speaker 1: few devices. So I think the one of those, some
Speaker 1: of the kindles, had this option, And I think this
Speaker 1: is very interesting. I don't know if it is the future,
Speaker 1: but I can very much see a scenario where it is.
Speaker 1: So here's the way it works. You can pay, and
Speaker 1: I'll just make some numbers up. Let's say there's a
Speaker 1: new device, it's like augmented reality glasses or something like that,
Speaker 1: where you can pay five hundred dollars to get just
Speaker 1: standard model, or you can pay two hundred dollars to
Speaker 1: get a version of this that every now and then
Speaker 1: shows you ads. That's pretty much it. So it's not
Speaker 1: just subsidizing content, it's paying for part of the hardware
Speaker 1: that you want to own but might be expensive. And
Speaker 1: I think that's an interesting model and we might see
Speaker 1: more of that going forward. But that leads into another
Speaker 1: thing I want to talk about, which is the possibility
Speaker 1: of augmented reality advertising. Right. So that's get like virtual
Speaker 1: ads overlaid on top of real physical things, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So think about the cool things that we've talked about
Speaker 1: that something like the Microsoft Hollow lens can do. One
Speaker 1: thing you could supposedly do with the hollow lens is
Speaker 1: it's pair glasses you put over your eyes and you
Speaker 1: you see everything normally. It's you know, it's like transparent
Speaker 1: so you can see your surroundings. It's it's not like
Speaker 1: virtual reality goggles where everything's virtual. The solid display is transparent, right,
Speaker 1: so it's transparent. You see your surroundings, but you can
Speaker 1: put digital content anywhere you want in your surroundings. So
Speaker 1: the cool thing about the hollow lens is, let's say
Speaker 1: maybe you can put a screen anywhere. So you want
Speaker 1: to watch TV, you don't have to look at a TV.
Speaker 1: You can say, well, I want to pin a screen
Speaker 1: playing a video to this wall, and so you can
Speaker 1: go about your business, but they're on that wall there.
Speaker 1: Through your glasses, you will perceive a screen playing your video.
Speaker 1: So every time you look at that wall, you'll see
Speaker 1: the screen, and if you look away, the screen in
Speaker 1: your perspective stays there. Yeah, and I think that that's
Speaker 1: really cool. Yeah, it's super cool. I really like that
Speaker 1: as a potential application. But you could also think about
Speaker 1: ads working that way. And I don't want to sound
Speaker 1: really creepy about it, though it might be creepy depending
Speaker 1: on on how it works out. So imagine you're wearing
Speaker 1: your augmented reality glasses while you're out on a hike
Speaker 1: in the mountains, and you've paid for this ad subsidized model,
Speaker 1: so you paid less to buy the glasses, but you're
Speaker 1: gonna see some ads. What might you see out on
Speaker 1: a hike. Well, it might be that you're walking through
Speaker 1: the woods and some tree stumps have ads for hiking
Speaker 1: boots or for camping gear. Now, obviously, like a national
Speaker 1: park would never allow people to pin up advertisements all
Speaker 1: over the You wouldn't have billboards everywhere, but you could
Speaker 1: digitally create a forest with ads pinned up all over.
Speaker 1: I'm just imagining like the comedy spoof version of this,
Speaker 1: where you're wearing the hollow lens you're out there. I
Speaker 1: obviously not the hollow lens that's meant for inside the house,
Speaker 1: but a hallid I'm talking, but I mean a future
Speaker 1: augmented reality. Right, You're you're wearing some some augmented reality
Speaker 1: headset or contact lenses or whatever it may be, and
Speaker 1: you're out there hiking. I could just imagine seeing the
Speaker 1: ad cold. Have you tried fire fire now for like
Speaker 1: and of course yeah, and it's of course you can
Speaker 1: imagine this not just hiking, but in any scenario. The
Speaker 1: software and hardware together are smart enough to sense things
Speaker 1: you might want to buy or be thinking about in
Speaker 1: your current situation. It can serve you, serve you ads
Speaker 1: for those super personalized like let's say again, Let's say
Speaker 1: that I'm wearing these augmented reality things, whatever they may be,
Speaker 1: and I'm walking around a city, and the device knows
Speaker 1: that I've not spent very much time in this city.
Speaker 1: It knows because of the fact that I've worn it
Speaker 1: for a while and that most of my time was
Speaker 1: spend in Atlanta. That's where my home is. It knows
Speaker 1: that because of just tracking my my location. But you're
Speaker 1: visiting the loss to the Atlantis. I'm I'm visiting the
Speaker 1: lost city of Atlantis. Now. It also knows because I
Speaker 1: have often gone to taco joints that I like tacos.
Speaker 1: And so I'm walking down or rather swimming down the
Speaker 1: avenue in Atlantis, and I'm looking around at various buildings
Speaker 1: and one of them happens to have a takaria in it,
Speaker 1: and it pops up tells me, Hey, you want those
Speaker 1: Baja fish tacos, this is the place to go. Uh.
Speaker 1: That would be very valuable to me. I would. I
Speaker 1: would very much like to that, especially if it was
Speaker 1: telling me, all right, well, here's the place, here are
Speaker 1: the top reviews for that place, here's the menu for
Speaker 1: that place. And it could all be that it's an
Speaker 1: opt in advertising thing. Um. And you know the other
Speaker 1: thing I like about this is that with augmented reality,
Speaker 1: it's it's very easy to get away from all the advertising.
Speaker 1: You just take the augmented reality headset off, right, and
Speaker 1: then you're not surrounded by I mean, you're surrounded by ads,
Speaker 1: but you're surrounded by classic ads, right. So what I
Speaker 1: was just talking about part of I was thinking about
Speaker 1: when I was imagining the scenario was like, wait, why
Speaker 1: are you wearing the glasses in the woods anyway? Shouldn't
Speaker 1: you be out enjoying nature. Well, you want to augment
Speaker 1: nature so you enjoy it more, right, Well, you might
Speaker 1: actually want to augment nature because you there might be
Speaker 1: cool apps that you could run in your glasses. So
Speaker 1: maybe you're out hiking and you want to be able
Speaker 1: to have like a compass app in your vision or
Speaker 1: like a maps app in your vision, or maybe you
Speaker 1: want to identify a bird you saw, Like you see
Speaker 1: a bird and you're like, I don't recognize that, and
Speaker 1: be able to use image recognition to say, hey, this
Speaker 1: is the bird. Yeah, Or maybe you want to look
Speaker 1: at maybe it'll identify constellations in the sky while you're
Speaker 1: out how hiking at night. Sure, so yeah, I can
Speaker 1: see scenarios where that could be cool. Though I hope
Speaker 1: at some point you take the glasses off and just
Speaker 1: experience some unfiltered planet Earth. And also I hope that
Speaker 1: in all of those experiences any sort of advertising is
Speaker 1: not intrusive, because obviously that would severely impact your enjoyment
Speaker 1: of the experience, right and need Again, just like every
Speaker 1: other type of advertising, it needs to be smart in
Speaker 1: order for it to work. Sure, but yeah, the thing
Speaker 1: you suggested I think is a is a less creepy
Speaker 1: and and maybe better version of that, where it's just
Speaker 1: for things around you that it thinks you would probably want. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you could get to a point
Speaker 1: where you even have uh, let's say that you've got
Speaker 1: the glasses on in your home, like the Hallo lends
Speaker 1: again great example, because that's designed to be in your
Speaker 1: home and you're looking around and you happen to look
Speaker 1: down at something that you know you doesn't work anymore,
Speaker 1: but you haven't gone around to throwing it out, and
Speaker 1: it identifies it and knows it doesn't work, and since
Speaker 1: you like, do you want to replace this that actually
Speaker 1: can identify when something's broken, Well, there can be because
Speaker 1: I'm like, let's, for example, I have a puppy, I know,
Speaker 1: and the puppy is adorable and I love him very much,
Speaker 1: but the puppy sometimes gets into things. Oh, this was
Speaker 1: going to such a scary place. I thought you were
Speaker 1: going to say, if my puppy is broken. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about my puppy being broken. Don't go there.
Speaker 1: I can't even I can't even bear that thought. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about my puppy like doing something that my puppy did.
Speaker 1: This is actually what my puppy did, chew through a
Speaker 1: power chord to a to a cradle that holds my
Speaker 1: universal remote. My universal remote does not take normal batteries.
Speaker 1: It has a like a proprietary battery inside of it
Speaker 1: that charges through these little contacts that are inside a
Speaker 1: charging cradle. So unless I buy a new charging cradle
Speaker 1: for this universal remote, which by this time has been
Speaker 1: kind of become obsolete, right, I mean, I could probably
Speaker 1: find one somewhere. But you know, let's say that I'm
Speaker 1: wearing the Hollands and I look around and it says, oh, well,
Speaker 1: clearly this isn't working anymore because the cable's broken. So
Speaker 1: here here's a link to a new one. You can
Speaker 1: buy it right away. That because I'm one of those
Speaker 1: people who, unless it's right in front of me, right
Speaker 1: at that moment, I might not even think about it.
Speaker 1: So the times when I'm actually engaged in shopping, I
Speaker 1: might not be thinking about the stuff that. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I could stand to buy another one of those.
Speaker 1: So how will the company that sells the replacement parts
Speaker 1: teach dogs how to chew through cables and we'll sell
Speaker 1: more stuff. However they've done it, it has really stuck
Speaker 1: with my dog, and my dog is is an ACE
Speaker 1: student and could probably teach other dogs his technique. Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about one more potential future advertising
Speaker 1: technology that could go to both good and horrible places. Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a particular science fiction series that you're going to
Speaker 1: refer to us. I'll start with the horrible and then
Speaker 1: we can imagine the hopefully more likely and better version.
Speaker 1: And this is eye tracking. So if you have seen
Speaker 1: the UK TV series Black Mirror, I'm sure you'll remember
Speaker 1: a terrifying, terrifying episode about people who live in a
Speaker 1: world where almost every social activity they do is digital.
Speaker 1: It's all done through puters like everything is. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like this dystopia of the social media future. Wait, well, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1: I think you met Utopia. Everyone seems pretty darn happy
Speaker 1: in that series. Yeah, yeah, it's it's terrifying. It's horrific.
Speaker 1: And so they're they're yeah, they're they're going through all
Speaker 1: these social apps to do everything. But of course every
Speaker 1: digital experience comes packaged with ads, and when an ad
Speaker 1: comes up, they've got a system of sort of money
Speaker 1: that's build as credits, and you must either watch the
Speaker 1: ad or pay a fine. That's scary enough on its own,
Speaker 1: I don't think hopefully, I don't think people would put
Speaker 1: up with the system like that, but we'd see. And
Speaker 1: then here's the worst part. You can't just let the
Speaker 1: ad run and ignore it. You have to watch because
Speaker 1: the screen knows if your eyes are closed or averted.
Speaker 1: There's eye tracking technology there, so if if you look,
Speaker 1: and your room is essentially all four walls are screens,
Speaker 1: so if you look from one wall to the other wall,
Speaker 1: the ad follows you. So it's not like you can
Speaker 1: look away from the ad. The ads still playing, still
Speaker 1: playing right in front of you. And if you close
Speaker 1: your eyes. It detects that you're closing your eyes and
Speaker 1: it will just pause the ad until you open your
Speaker 1: eyes again. Yeah. Now, like I said, hopefully, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't think this kind of thing will ever happen
Speaker 1: because it is just so awful. I don't think people
Speaker 1: would put up with it. That's my optimistic take on this.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're cynics and pessimistic people who say, no,
Speaker 1: we're going down that road. There's no way it would work.
Speaker 1: No one would buy anything from any company that did that.
Speaker 1: So unless we hope not, unless you were a company
Speaker 1: buying ad spots for your uh competitors, so that you
Speaker 1: that you sour everybody on their stuff, it just wouldn't happen.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna hopefully say I don't think people would
Speaker 1: tolerate this kind of world. But on the technical side,
Speaker 1: this is not hard to imagine at all. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think we have the technology to build this today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have softwye tracking software exists. Yeah, we They used
Speaker 1: to be that they would have specialized cameras to do
Speaker 1: eye checking. Nowadays you just need software and and typically
Speaker 1: a standard webcam or even laptop camera can do this.
Speaker 1: Sort of stuff where it can track where your eyes
Speaker 1: are uh directing, you know, where where you're you're directing
Speaker 1: your gaze. So let's say that you've got an AD,
Speaker 1: you might use that sort of software to see, well,
Speaker 1: where are people looking when this ad pops up? Is
Speaker 1: it compelling? Are they looking away? If they're looking away?
Speaker 1: Can we design an AD that makes people want to
Speaker 1: watch if they are watching a particular thing in the ad?
Speaker 1: Can we create another ad that takes advantage of that.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe maybe there's a particular beauty shot of
Speaker 1: a product and people are really gravitating towards that, and
Speaker 1: you think, well, maybe we need to focus the product
Speaker 1: more in our ad and less about the idyllic experience
Speaker 1: your life will have if you buy said product, right,
Speaker 1: because a lot of the ads focus on you know,
Speaker 1: things like family, you know, a family hanging out and
Speaker 1: being happy or whatever, and you don't see what the
Speaker 1: product is until towards the end of the commercial, And
Speaker 1: really what they're selling is the idea of happiness. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw the same ad I
Speaker 1: did before mad Max Fury Road, did you? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was in the theater to watch mad Max Fury Road.
Speaker 1: And there was a commercial that played before the movie
Speaker 1: came on, and it was exactly like you're describing that.
Speaker 1: It didn't identify what the product was and I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say the brand particularly, but it was like
Speaker 1: it wasn't coke, wasn't because we didn't talk about know.
Speaker 1: It was it was like this, this family doing all
Speaker 1: these things outside, had nothing to do with any product
Speaker 1: to that you could identify, like a whole family and
Speaker 1: they're like on a farm outdoors doing various activities. And
Speaker 1: then at the end it just showed the brand name
Speaker 1: and it was a brand of yogurt, had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with No one is ever eating yogurt in the ad. No,
Speaker 1: And everyone in the audience just immediately started laughing. It was,
Speaker 1: I would say, not a successful act. Well, and it's
Speaker 1: one of those things that advertisers are trying to do
Speaker 1: right there, trying to associate a brand with a particular
Speaker 1: type of a set of feelings. Right It's almost like
Speaker 1: you're selling happiness as opposed to selling a product. Sure,
Speaker 1: and I think ads have always done that, but this
Speaker 1: is this is an example of doing it the wrong way.
Speaker 1: Egregious example. So you know, you might you might end
Speaker 1: up creating an AD and using eye tracking software to
Speaker 1: see you know. And I could see this being more
Speaker 1: about the testing of the ads before they go out
Speaker 1: to the public. Not necessarily some of that's rolled out
Speaker 1: because none of us want to have a world where
Speaker 1: when we are online, our cameras are always active to
Speaker 1: track our eyes. We don't want that world. That's not
Speaker 1: any place we want to But assuming that's something where
Speaker 1: they're testing the ad, you know, they're bringing people into
Speaker 1: look at different ads and see which ones are more effective. It's,
Speaker 1: you know, essentially the focus group type stuff. Eye tracking
Speaker 1: might be very useful to see, like, oh, well, maybe
Speaker 1: we need to reshoot this AD and focus on this
Speaker 1: one thing because that's what everyone seems to really be
Speaker 1: looking at or they're looking at it, and this thing
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the stuff we're selling, and
Speaker 1: therefore this is a distraction. We need to eliminate that distraction.
Speaker 1: Those could be examples. Then again, I can see, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, this might be another scenario where that
Speaker 1: subsidized hardware comes in. You know, what if it what
Speaker 1: if people accept something that tracks where their eyes are
Speaker 1: looking because they can get the device a lot cheaper
Speaker 1: if they agree to that. Well, I mean if they're
Speaker 1: doing it, because that's all on the up and up.
Speaker 1: You know, it's right there in the front saying this
Speaker 1: is the reason this isn't expensive. And uh, I mean personally,
Speaker 1: I would never do it. I can't imagine. I don't
Speaker 1: think i'd even buy a device that show in me
Speaker 1: ads because it was cheaper. I now see, I could
Speaker 1: see myself doing that depending upon the device, because it
Speaker 1: would depend on how badly I wanted the device. Uh So,
Speaker 1: for example, for something like an e reader, like it's
Speaker 1: for me. Any reader is one of those things that
Speaker 1: I do like enjoy using them. Uh and uh, I
Speaker 1: think they are valuable. But if I'm looking at one
Speaker 1: that's fifty dollars as opposed to one that's two d
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars, and the fifty dollar one is because
Speaker 1: it has some ads in it, I might think, you know,
Speaker 1: I really like e readers, but I don't know if
Speaker 1: I like them two fifty dollars much. I guess I'd
Speaker 1: want to know how where the ads show up, how often,
Speaker 1: how intrusive they are. I mean, is it going to
Speaker 1: be like every time you flip the page you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to flip past an ad. For me, it would be,
Speaker 1: are are the ads working with whatever it is you're reading,
Speaker 1: Because if you're reading something like The Road, is it
Speaker 1: all like like like like the the filter masks for
Speaker 1: when you're dusting in your house or I saw any
Speaker 1: water or you know, that would be awkward, right like,
Speaker 1: depending upon what you're reading, like you're reading Game of Thrones,
Speaker 1: it would just be it would just be uh, wedding
Speaker 1: cakes and uh and various types of razors like yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that comedy aside. I mean, obviously there are
Speaker 1: are again things that you've gotta actually dedicate thought too.
Speaker 1: We've I'm sure all of us have had a story
Speaker 1: where we've been in an experience where an unfortunate ad
Speaker 1: has has thrown a moment into the wrong kind of tone,
Speaker 1: Like you know, it's the end of a show, end
Speaker 1: of an end of an act on a on a
Speaker 1: television show where something really dramatic happens, and then the
Speaker 1: next ad is so totally different that it has created
Speaker 1: a moment of absurdity that makes it hard for you
Speaker 1: to get back into the show. We've had those examples. Heck,
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl This past year is a great example.
Speaker 1: There were so many heavy, heavy commercials. I didn't watch it,
Speaker 1: but I remember people talking about, yeah, like ads that,
Speaker 1: oh wait, did I watch it? I think maybe I
Speaker 1: saw part of it. I wasn't really anyway that the
Speaker 1: whole thing was. I remember people talking about ads that
Speaker 1: were like your children are going to die. Yeah. No.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of very heavy ads, and particularly
Speaker 1: heavy ads about like that that dealt with with some
Speaker 1: sort of tragic event and then the healing after that
Speaker 1: tragic event was part of what the ad was selling.
Speaker 1: And there were so many that people were like, this
Speaker 1: is the most depressing super Bowl in history because the
Speaker 1: ads are so dark and depressing and they're very The
Speaker 1: few that were fun and and peppy and whatever, we're
Speaker 1: so uh, you know, seemed out of place. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: just was weird, right, And so that's one of those
Speaker 1: things again. It's it's you know, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: difficult thing, like how do you design an ad that's
Speaker 1: going to be powerful and compelling and get people to
Speaker 1: do what you want them to do, but not again
Speaker 1: disrupt the entire experience. So, uh, we'll probably see more
Speaker 1: work in that area as well. I think I think
Speaker 1: the interesting thing to me about advertising is how it's
Speaker 1: the the way we experience the world around us is
Speaker 1: evolving so quickly that there's a there are a lot
Speaker 1: of questions that are unanswered, and so things that might
Speaker 1: have worked back in the good old days, the mad
Speaker 1: men days, uh those that those rules don't apply anymore,
Speaker 1: or at least not to the same extent that they
Speaker 1: once did. So it's it's an interesting world and I'm
Speaker 1: I am curious to see where this goes, both as
Speaker 1: a consumer and as someone who creates stuff like it
Speaker 1: matters to me. Um, I'm not you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: planning on advertising any of the stuff I do, apart
Speaker 1: from you know, the kind of promotion I do on
Speaker 1: social media or whatever. But but the other two areas
Speaker 1: where the you know, the person who's creating content that
Speaker 1: is ad supported and the person who consumes content very
Speaker 1: much matter to me. So this was fun to talk about,
Speaker 1: and I know this was one of our more rambily
Speaker 1: episodes because we were, you know, wanting to to focus
Speaker 1: on something that we're interested in and also concerned about
Speaker 1: because we want to make sure that when it's done,
Speaker 1: it's done correctly. I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are, listeners,
Speaker 1: If you have any perspective on ads, maybe you work
Speaker 1: in advertising, maybe you've got, you know, a deeper sense
Speaker 1: of perspective from that side than we do, which would
Speaker 1: be great to hear from you. If that's the case,
Speaker 1: send us an email our addresses FW Thinking at how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com, or you can drop us a
Speaker 1: line on Twitter or Google Plus or Facebook. At Twitter
Speaker 1: and Google Plus, we are f W Thinking. Just search
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Speaker 1: right up and you can leave us a message there.
Speaker 1: We read all of them, and we we love hearing
Speaker 1: from you guys, and we will talk to you again
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