4 On-Demand Ads That Can Change the World

Although if asked, a lot of people will say differently, ads are not universally despised. Most of the time, people not only don't seek them, they actively avoid them. As it turns out, though, they're just despised when they get in the way. When they're relevant to a specific task at hand, ads are not only tolerated, but welcome.

Consider the following examples:

• Christmas Gifts - The day before Thanksgiving, at 2 p.m., at the request of my wife, I went scouring the area for a newspaper. I ran into a lot of people who, like me, were store-hopping to find a newspaper so that they (or their wives) could find the sales that were going on the day after Thanksgiving.
  
  I stopped by 3 grocery stores and 2 drugstores and one convenience store. The last place I stopped was Walgreens, where the cashier told a group of us looking that all newspapers in the area had sold out by noon.
  
  None of us knew we could view the ads online (though I later found out). Knowing I could have just booted up the computer to show my wife the ads at the time could have saved me an hour of driving in the futile hopes that I could find a recent newspaper. Think of all the gas we could have saved.
  
  
• Electronics - Every Friday, particularly among the programmers and techno-mavens, is "Fry's Day," when we all flock to the coffee room to huddle around thefull 4 page broadsheet ad placed in the Dallas Morning News by Fry's Electronics store.
  
  There's typically only one of these available for viewing at a time, so at times we're practically throwing elbows for a little room.
  
  It's possible to find the ad online, just like the Christmas ads, but it's impossible to spontaneously buy online directly from the ad.
  
  Failing to deliver this useful feature simply encourages comparison shopping and undoubtedly costs them sales.
   
• Groceries - Every Sunday, thousands and thousands of thrifty shoppers get their local paper (often two) to find the best deals and coupons, hoping to save money at the grocery store.
  
  The process of clipping coupons and organizing them effectively can take hours each week.
  
  Wouldn't it be cool if you could just subscribe to (and even pay for) access to an online coupon retriever, set up preferences so that you can download, print, or send to your mobile phone the coupons you want each week?
  
  Now, there are accounting rules to consider with this solution, and the rules that govern coupons' impact on balance sheets almost certainly should be updated in order to meet the demands of customers and make the entire process more efficient. Doing so may marginally increase productivity and would be less wasteful.
  
  
  
• Movie Trailers - Imagine you're sitting at home on Friday evening with your spouse, flipping through the 329 channels on your DVR-enabled satellite receiver only to discover there's nothing good on.
  
  "Hey, honey, why don't we see a movie? Twilight is playing."
  
  "Twilight? What's that again?"
  
  "Let me show you."
  
  You then choose the menu item that displays the latest movie trailers. Choose "Now Playing" and select your trailer.
  
  Distributors could pay to have their trailers listed and/or based on how many households view them.

These things are not necessarily logistically easy, but for most of them the individual pieces exist independently somewhere. All it will take is the willingness of category experts (as well as their financiers) to expend the effort to make it happen. - Cam Beck

Comments

[Mark Shipley]

Great post. I would add the Superbowl television broadcast to the list. Many people watch it each year for the ads as much as or more than for the game itself. Often, this is in expectation of being entertained rather than looking for something to purchase. But nevertheless, the ads are welcomed. On the Monday after the game, the media is a buzz with talk of the ads. Everyone I know has an opinion of which ads were the best. In 1984, it was the Apple MacIntosh launch commercial. Last year, it wasn't GoDaddy.com's commmercial.

[Cam Beck]

Mark - I also wonder how many nonmarketing people go online to find the ads after they first aired.