There is huge talk about market saturation and customer apathy, and while I don’t deny these factors exist, I think our perspective on them is skewed.

When asked, people will likely claim to hate advertising. However, there are popular shows and sites that demonstrate the contrary. The reality is that these are people who simply don’t enjoy being interrupted with information they don’t need. On the other hand, if you were to advertise to them when they are actually requesting information, you would likely find their viewpoint on the whole thing somewhat changed. These are the opportunities that open true channels of communication for marketers.

Yelp is a service (via website and mobile application) that allows registered businesses to offer up listing information, supported by public ratings and comments on their experiences.  To my mind, Yelp is the primitive start of a new strategic wave of advertising.  Its mandate is to be relevant and available on demand. I like to call it Quick Service Advertising, though have to credit Jon Finkelstein for the name.

Naturally, the dynamic and targeted nature of mobile opens up a Pandora’s Box of QSA opportunities for marketers. That being said, there are more traditional formats that are also cleverly integrating user participation in their own advertising process.

Hulu (how I miss thee) is an online broadcast service owned by NBC/Universal with a unique approach to advertising. It allows the free streaming of shows and movies from NBC, ABC, FOX, Disney, etc. for a simple price: that viewers accept advertising as part of their terms of streaming. At the beginning of each show, users select whether they would prefer to view a series of :15 spots from a variety of self-selected brands, or watch a 2 minute ad format from one brand and watch the balance of the show without interruption.

Research conducted by the Publicis group identified that top-of-mind awareness for brands in the short format ads hit 288%, whereas viewers identified a 438% top of mind awareness for brands with long format ads. These results are impressive. I believe, as did the researchers, that the increase of efficacy can be attributed to choice and relevance to the consumer.

On-demand entertainment is increasingly at our fingertips. Our media models, however, have yet to catch-up. Televisions in Canada, hooked up through cable, satellite, or fiberoptics (which constitutes the vast majority of households) currently have the technological ability to move to a media model similar to that of Hulu’s. Mobile devices hand advertisers the ability to be there for customers when they want us. Few at this point has realized this potential. The first person or company to nail it wins the jackpot.