Anyone who has talked to me about online advertising (or online strategy in general) will know that I have one pet peeve which rises above all the others: videos which play automatically. Aptly describing my aversion to this marketing tactic would take a compound adjective big enough to fill this entire post. In lieu of this, I give you: “User’s Response to Auto-Play Video” as performed by the singularly talented Lucille Ball:
If you think this is just a pet peeve, let me refer you to Time magazine’s tech writer, Matt Peckham, who said Facebook’s recent addition of video ads was: “Like someone planting a Vegas billboard outside your window that turns on any time you want to admire the scenery.”
But, like so many aesthetic rules, braking the web-wide pact against intrusive video ads can result in pure magic. For your viewing pleasure, I present Push Up Muscle Shirts from TheFlatteringMan.com (DISCLAIMER: You will want to have your speakers turned on for this.)
Just goes to show that taking risks in advertising can pay off big. By subverting the dominant paradigm you can change an ad that makes people feel like this:
Into something more like this:
NOTE – If you liked that, here are the rest of the sites from the campaign:
