Jeremy pointed me to a 2005 lecture by Mark Pesce called Piracy is Good? recently in which, among other things, Pesce argues that the future of advertising is in little fuzzy “bugs” on the corners of video, stamping a regionally-specific label that you can stare at alongside your episode of Battlestar Galactica. I can see his point; perhaps advertising has to sink into the story somehow in order to remain significant. I wondered, though, if we wouldn’t just ignore little fuzzy bits in the corners of the screen; who cares that McDonald’s sponsored Desperate Housewives? I imagine it would be more effective, though more of a creative sell out, to work a product into an episode, like Elaine’s dedication to the Sponge on Seinfeld.

It seems to be a foregone conclusion that the tv commercial is dead. People Tivo tv and just skip through the commericals; others download tv shows minus any ads whatsoever. So who would produce these things anymore?

On the flip side, there are some awesome commerials that stand on their own as little works of art.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5BxymuiAxQ&hl=en]

Jeremy linked me to this one, and I passed it on to Jason this morning. It’s an ad, but it’s a good ad!

And then there was this one:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRI-A3vakVg&hl=en]

This national rallying cry, tapping into Canadians’ heartfelt desire to be distinguished from their southern neighbours, is still well loved in spite of the fact it’s advertising a pretty crap brand of beer.

And then there’s a couple of current PSAs:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrFnnUsfWvw&hl=en]

I think that’s an awesomely effective ad, though my friend Brin says it doesn’t make him want to stop smoking. I guess you can’t have it all. And then there’s this one, which just makes me bawl like a baby:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8USn0BdRQ94&hl=en]

People still pay attention to tv ads; it’s just that they have to be extremely good to keep us watching.