Note: This is actually way better if you’re first seeing it during a Dollhouse commercial break on Hulu, without the spoilers of the youtube video title and static screen (below) giving away what you’re about to see.
In the course of just 30 seconds the ad takes you on a ride of intrigue and suspense that manages to tell a whole epic saga (literally) in a highly entertaining, insightfully modern way. No wonder the campaign is called “Search Stories.” It’s like “Hamlet: (Facebook News Feed Edition)” meets The Usual Suspects. And just as you’ve put the pieces together, and it’s dawning on you who the Kaiser Soze behind these searches is, it’s over.
.
Makes you want to watch it a second time.
Search Stories is such a smart response to the Microsoft’s “It’s time to Bing and decide” campaign earlier this year for their new search engine. Because the truth about how we search for things online, is the truth about how we think about and live our lives — as exemplified here by Bruce Wayne’s. Life is an ongoing story we create. It’s not simply a string of isolated queries and decisions, it’s a series of searches and discoveries.
A friend of mine, pro skater Patrick Melcher (significant other to SkinGraft‘s Katie Kay, and 2nd place Moustache World Champion), just completed the pilot for an action sports / reality show concept he co-concocted called “Good Times Roll.” The gist is: Melcher and his BMX buddy Jon Peacy get dropped down in a random city, meet up with their homies, go scope out some spots to skate and ride, engage in some friendly competition, and, as the title would suggest, let the good times roll. A little bit The Amazing Race meets Shaq Vs. meets huckjam, the pilot was shot in Vegas last month and shopped around the traditional network way but didn’t get any concrete commitment. So, last week the trailer got *(cough)* “leaked” online, covered on ESPN, viewed like 19 thousand times, and now networks are hitting them up. Like you do in the digital age.
The show looks absolutely sweet. Excited to see where it lands!
To the extent that any advertising works, the model in place at websites like Hulu and Fancast, that offer commercial-supported streaming video of TV shows and movies, is pretty damn effective. Unlike the 3-minute average TV commercial break, which most people Tivo past or click away for or simply go to the bathroom during, the 30-second “limited commercial interruption” on your online machine gets you to pay attention. 30 seconds isn’t enough to walk away for, after all. Sure, you can pause to answer nature’s call or email’s or SMS’s or whatever, but the remainder of the ad will play when you unpause. You can, at most, surf over to another browser tab, but nevertheless you’re still listening to the ad’s audio, and on several occasions I’ve gotta admit this was intriguing enough unto itself to get me to tab back. (The lazer-bassy sounding Asics ad with the Asian male model dude running through psychedelic milk formations is coming to mind).
At the same time, because the commercial interruption really IS limited — one ad per break — and often Hulu even offers a choice as to which ad you’d prefer to see and in what sort of format (a long-form ad before the program starts, with no breaks later on is also an option), it doesn’t feel nearly as offensive and imposing as the ads that you DO have time to walk away from on the teevee. The one thing that’s missing is a feature to click to see the ad directly, replay it, and embed or share it. Right now you still have to go over to youtube or elsewhere if you want to find the ad you just saw on Hulu (counter intuitive, no?) and sometimes you can’t even find the ad anywhere (the Timberland Earthkeepers ad where the sole of the shoe keeps morphing into all sorts of things like an eagle and a tire, etc, is coming to mind. I STILL can’t find that shit, and it was hella cool.)
As Hulu’s brand keeps growing — it overtook the big broadcast networks that own shares of it (ABC, NBC and Fox) in web traffic for the first time this past June — less, it turns out, really is more, paricularly when it comes to commercials. Now, how long until Hulu starts producing its own original content, you think? Let’s just hope Netflix (whose Red Envelope Entertainment division, responsible for licensing and distributing films such as Born into Brothels and Sherrybaby expanded to produce its own original content in 2006 only to close down just 2 years later in part to avoid competition with its studio partners) isn’t necessarily a permanent precedent.
As some of you may know, I’ve got an open relationship with this sort of pop-sociology / marketing-strategy genre I have been cultivating here, at Social-Creature. I also have a tendency to get into long-term situations with fiction (more on that soon!), and every so often ring up poetry for a late-night booty call.
Every so often, it turns out, is much more often than I’d suspected. A few weeks ago I got the idea to collect all the random bits of verse that I’d clickity-clacked over the past few years and create a strictly poetry blog. (Plus, it was a good reason to try out Tumblr.)
So without further ado, I will present my poetry tumblelog in just a moment, but first —
Please note: while I exercise a deliberately informal tone on this site, it is nevertheless always delivered within a professional and analytical context. By clicking over to peep some poems you are confirming that you understand the content you are about to consume is a strictly artistic expression and is to be treated as such. If you don’t understand the difference, aren’t sure you can handle it, or simply aren’t a fan of art in general, you’re already reading the wrong blog, and shouldn’t even venture any further. As for the rest…>> disappear — here.
