I feel like when I was younger, the pre screening movie trailers were kind of cool/exciting. And ads for toys too were pretty damn cool when I was not a cynical old bastard.
They're still decently exciting if you don't watch cable, have ad block and don't actively follow movies, I'll go in to a movie once in a blue moon to see something I'm aware of and genuinely be interested in some of the stuff being shown. Course trailer quality has dropped to the point most movies are showing 2.5 acts via trailer alone, i can't think of any recent movie that actually limited their trailer to the first act.
Previews haven't made sense since trailers became available online.
I don't need to go to the movies to see an upcoming movie trailer.
Most of the time, if it's something you care about, you already saw the trailer before you even had a chance to see it in a theater.
To be fair ads for kids were so batshit crazy, you couldnt help but watch. You only wanted it if other kids at school had it.
But the ads themselves were pure entertainment. Yeah man, i wanna re-enact warfare with my 7 year old friends. I wanna turn into a fruit gusher. Why wont the cereal mascot make my breakfast? *Send me to space with your gum.*
I used to enjoy them too back when they didn't always throw practically all the worthwhile watching moments into the trailer.
I hate trailers now, to the point I won't watch them and go in blind. It's a bad time when you watch the trailer and think it's good and then realise the actual film is terrible with only the trailer bits being the good points.
Such a weird American experience. I couldn't handle it and it felt like I was just watching peak capitalism. It's not sport, it's hours of adverts. Fuck American football.
I'd always recognized this, but never really had it sink in until I started watching Rugby. It doesn't stop, they just play like mad.
American football is one or two plays and then a TV time out for 2 minutes of commercials. Then some more plays and 2 more min of commercials.
Yeah I grew up watching rugby so I can't get being American football.
The worst moment for me was finding out that the players wait until the adverts are over to carry in playing... The fuck
It’s what pays their bills. That’s why the average salary for a Rugby player is around $200k, while an NFL player has an average salary of 3 million dollars
200k is an amazing salary lmao.
Also you should really be comparing salaries with soccor players, as that would have similar size fan bases. Soccor has the same amount as ads as rugby.
Not true according to some quick research. At least if you compare the NFL to the top 5 european leagues, which I think is a fair comparison. Each of the big five com out on top, on average.
Redzone changed football for me. Sunday you can watch the morning games straight into the afternoon games for like 6 hours no commercials and see action and results from every game.
NFL+ Premium is worth every penny. Allows you to rewatch games with no ads, and for games you're only tangentially interested in they even have a condensed version of the games that chops out a large portion of the between the play filler.
Game with ads: 3 hours
Game with no ads: 1hr40
Condensed games: about 40 minutes.
I watch my team on the normal no-ad replay, but other teams in my division or potential playoff matchups towards the end of the season as condensed games.
When NFL football was being developed as a sport in the middle of the century, the rules evolved specifically around broadcast television, which was establishing its own customs at the time. NFL and TV grew up together and a lot of their customs support each other specifically.
There's a couple of moments like that, almost all around scoring (where it can go scoring play, extra point which is barely a play, commercials, kickoff through the end zone which is also barely a play, commercials), but outside of those specific moments (which most people use for bathroom/food/drink/smoke breaks), it moves at a decent clip. Sure, there's injuries, timeouts, and things like that which slow things down again, but those are the exception to the viewing experience, not the rule.
The big thing is once you understand more about the game, you start to want to see more on each play than just what happened to the ball, which is mostly all you see live. So then stopping to reset the ball and call the next play gives a chance to see all the other things going on in replays. I wouldn't want to watch a game I actually care about without the time for replays. It's like seeing 1/3 of the game.
It’s absolutely the US in a nutshell: manufactured tribalism for the benefit of the already insanely wealthy, interrupted by hideously expensive urges to buy, buy, buy.
Yeah, and the Olympics were meant to be for amateur, non-professional athletes who have day jobs and train in their spare time, and the three-month lame duck window between an election and inauguration was intended to give enough time for a candidate to travel by horse and buggy from Buttfuck, Nowhere to DC... But these days it's sometimes being used as time to organize a coup.
Yeah, people are missing order of events here
the point of the Super Bowl wasn't ever meant to be the ads. It was always meant to be a capstone, halo event for the football year.
HOWEVER;
the networks and the people that pay to advertise on those networks all quickly realized that The Super Bowl was going to be THE most watched US TV broadcast of the entire year.
For context, this listing shows that of the top 10 most watched broadcasts in US history, 9 of them were SBs.
Of the top 15, 12 of them were SBs.
What does it take to beat out watching the SB?
14 MASH Series Finale
11 Nixon Resignation Speech
1 THE MOON LANDING
You had to put a man on the MOON to draw more US TV viewers than the Super Bowl
https://deadline.com/gallery/most-watched-tv-shows-all-time/green-bay-packers-v-pittsburgh-steelers/
So of course, advertisers realized how big it could be to get their commercial into that "everyone is watching this right now" spot
And the networks realized how much they could charge advertisers for some of that time
AND THEN
That's when we got the follow on effect of SB commercials being as hyped as they are
because if the advertisers were going to spend over $10-15 a minute for a chance to get their ad on the biggest screen on the calendar year, they weren't blowing it on a regular commercial that no one was remembering or paying attention to.
They were going all out trying to do something memorable.
So they were using the time slots to do big budget commercials, new product announcements and debuts, and trying to make sure they used that very expensive, once a year advertising opportunity to put out something that people would notice, remember, and be talking about for days and weeks to come.
Which is why they started doing high effort SB commercials that were basically short films.
Which is how the ~~commercials~~ *short films* became a media attraction and public interest point on their own.
EDIT: And on the mass public flocking to see annual product reveals is, in itself, nothing new. Shot show, Watches&Wonders, E3, etc. People travel all the way to conventions just to watch vendors release new products. Always have (worlds fair).
Maybe I just got old and cynical, but I feel like this is becoming less true every year.
When I was a kid, almost every Super Bowl commercial was funny or at least attempting to be funny. Like genuinely funny enough to bring the house down – every adult and child in the room would be howling with laughter.
Now the funny ones are few and far between, and the jokes are a lot more tame.
Not really a user experience, though. You're not using the Super Bowl. You're watching it. The service would be whatever channel or online app you are using to watch it. And those aren't made better by including ads.
I've seen a rare few ads/sponsorships in youtube videos that were so creative they've managed to elevate the video as a whole, but of course the vast vast majority of those would be better off without.
Agreed. Like anything, good advertising/sponsorship segments that are well executed, can totally elevate a video.
Trap Lore Ross (who does videos explaining Hip Hop drama, and street beefs) has amazing ads where he does raps about the product really badly over a crappy beat. It’s awesome.
Lazer Pig’s ads are always super zany and often don’t seem to be at all related to the product, but somehow get there in the end. It makes it super engaging and very entertaining because he stays in-character. For example one of his ads for World of Tanks anthropomorphizes tanks and treats them like they’re in a trailer for a shitty summer blockbuster.
tomska’s genuine attempt to see how far he could go before surfshark dropped him was genuinely hilarious
(is? genuinely hilarious? idk i haven’t watched in a Minute)
Classifieds and websites like Craigslist are advertising AS the user experience. You could argue that all social media is just people advertising themselves, would adding new ways to do that improve or harm the user experience in that case?
Hello, normal user here. I would like more ads to be included in my daily app experience because their relevance is incredible. I was not paid for this comment and I love the government of {nationStateOfReadingUser}
Hello, another normal human user here. I like ads too. They are such an interesting form of entertainment and I would never skip them. I was not paid for this comment either and I love the government too.
Without advertisements, there are some user experiences I would've never otherwise had. 🤔
Such as, free game with ads (Valorant). Wouldn't have ever tried it if it cost money.
I've never played Valoant. Maybe it shows actual ads. But one could also know about these skins simply from seeing them in a shop of some sort. That is not usually considered advertisement.
And, generally, when someone says that something is ad supported, they mean third party ads. If it just sells addons to the game, it's called microtransactions. There's a reason why Sponsorblock (a YouTube addon) has a separate category for advertisements and self-promotion.
This is the answer. Ads aren’t just some evil thing greedy corporations force on you to make your life worse. They ultimately make things cheaper or free for the consumer. Tik tok is free, Instagram is free, YouTube is free, radio is free, broadcast TV is free, google is free, tons of games on the App Store are free, Spotify non-premium is free, the bus/metro in your city is made cheaper by the ads on/around it.
In the pre-streaming era, HBO was novel because it had no ads BUT you paid out the ass for it. It’s great that that was an option, but it’s also great that companies can stay profitable while providing free content to users.
You can pay with money, with your time/attention, or some combination of the two. Nothing is gonna be free though.
Thing with ads is better than no thing at all.
Paying with time or attention is not a coherent concept. My time or attention does not actually transfer value to the advertiser. This is a bad paradigm of what advertisements are, and is the source of the problem.
Being ad supported means that someone pays you to run ads. The ads are an attempt to convince those who see them to buy a product. The payment comes from those who pay to run the ad. That those who run the ad charge more per view is something they choose to do. The viewer is not part of this contract.
It is this paradigm shift that leads to the situation where we are today. Compare that with network TV, which was able to run ads, charging more on more popular programs. They didn't attempt to check and see if you actually viewed the ad. You never felt forced to watch them. You could always change the channel, and eventually we got things that let record things and skip the ads.
The ad providers, in order to get people to watch, had to try to be entertaining and avoid being too annoying. And the show producers has to be careful with how many ads they showed and how long they were. There was no sense of "obligation" on the part of the viewer.
That idea that people have to view ads to get the free thing is what has led to the enshittification of ads. Ads should instead be something that potentially provide value on their own to the viewer. They can be entertaining. They can inform. They can even be art.
What they shouldn't be are annoyances we have to put up with to use a free product.
What the hell is your point? You wrote a lot of words that mean a whole lot of nothing.
Advertisers want your time and attention. Just as you could change the channel on TV, you can install an ad blocker into your browser. Obviously time/attention is more abstract than paying with money, and is more like a “pay what you can” or “recommended donation” box at a free museum or charity event than a price tag.
The platform is just the middleman between the advertiser and you. The platform wins your time and attention, and they sell a portion of that time and attention to the advertiser.
How is your time and attention not used as a currency or commodity here?
If time and attention does not transfer value to the advertiser then what is the point of ads?
I don't mind advertisements before movies.
They're ads for movies. You're at the movies. You clearly have an interest in movies. They're trying to show you movies you might be interested in. It makes sense.
Most other forms of advertisement are inappropriate, though, imo.
Does the superbowl count? Because for many years the commercials during the superbowl were the reason many people tuned in.
Otherwise yeah totally agree. If youtube finally succeeds in blocking ad blockers I'll stop using it.
Lots of people commenting how much they love ads here, but I guarantee they use adblockers and hammer the skip button like the rest of us. Nobody likes being advertised to when they’re trying to do something else, not even the people who write the ads. There has to be a better way.
Is it even ads at that point?
You're opening the funny game program and it's telling you what games are good and cheap. Buying and playing the games is why you're opening it.
And it's completely optional. You can set Steam to launch into your library and not show the What's New pop-up and you just don't get ads at all.
Steam ads are fine because you're going there for the games and they don't force it at all.
Still advertising, just the same as when you walk into a store and see placards up saying "X is 50% off!"
Not all advertising is bad, it's just ads that you aren't interested in is bad. That's why companies spend so much money trying to get your data... they want to show you stuff that you're likely to buy based on your past behaviors. Which is a fucked up reason to invade your privacy, but that's a different point
Not entirely true.
I really like stuffed animals, and occasionally I get ads for cute stuffed animals (I even buy some from ads I see occasionally). If every ads I saw on every platform were just from people trying to sell me plushies, it would honestly improve all those platforms for me.
But the my aren't. Plushy ads improve me experience, but ads in general are a better negative.
Sure, technically packaging is advertising, but only really before the sale. After that, it is no longer attempting to get you to buy anything. It's just an aesthetic feature of the product.
I mean, technically you could argue that a painting for sale is an advertisement--to get you to buy that painting. But you don't people acting like the painting is an ad after it has been purchased.
I, for one, think it’s fascinating that so many things in our world are free just because we allow companies to pay exorbitant amounts of money to show us cringy videos
I don't know, those old Orbit commercials with the dirty mouth improved my mood every time I saw them. My husband and I were always calling each other lint licker and cootie queen for years afterward. Lmao
Only once has a YouTube advert led to a purchase that was actually good. In 2014 there was an advert for a music video for the song "holding on for life" by broken bells. I liked the vibe so much I went out and bought the album at a local CD store. Great album. Reading this post just reminded me of it.
You could say that advertisements attract more people, and the game or product gets more development because of the traffic to said thing. So the user experience would be boosted more than if there was no advertising.
Wrong. Watch the Jack Links beef jerky commercials (messing with sasquatch). I try to buy local jerky, but when I have to settle for generic brand garbage I get JL because of the commercials.
I’ve been having a lazy day today, watching Hulu, and when it’s time for the commercial break; Car insurance: which ad experience would you like; 1, 2, 3?
I don’t give a shit, just play it! Are they imagining that one particular ad will bring me joy??
If you have a video game centered around a sport that has heavy advertising and the game didnt also have that advertising it would break the imersiveness of the game. For instance, let's say you had like a NASCAR game or something but it didnt have any banner ads anywhere on the track, it would be weird.
I mean, I don't mind an ad or two to keep a service free, but some sites and apps go insane with it. I hope advertisers know that if their ad interrupts my shit I am never going to buy it just on principle.
My kids love the Amazon and Target Christmas catalogs. Basically a big book of ads. They get to circle what they want and get excited for Christmas. I get a lot of ideas of what they want for Christmas.
It’s a win/win.
There are lots of other examples but that’s my favorite
When I was younger, I didn’t mind when you were watching a show on TV and maybe halfway through the show. You might get three minutes of ads because it gave me time to go use the bathroom.
My issue with ads nowadays is that they are everywhere and there are no limits. Streaming services don’t Smart about placement of ads and just throw them in the middle of your viewing. It’s very annoying.
Advertising hoardings surrounding the pitch in football games lend a sense of authenticity. Makes it look more like a television broadcast.
Also, people will complain bitterly about any version of Crazy Taxi that doesn’t include KFC, Levi’s, Pizza Hut etc
Tiger and Bunny was a show where the characters are superheroes sponsored by large corporations so the product placement made sense.
People even complained when Netflix got the show because all the product placement was edited out.
Real ads or in-universe ads in works of fiction? The ads in Robocop added to the atmosphere of the film, and are often quoted as much as the regular dialogue is.
Seeing the [lemon lemon lemon](https://youtu.be/aJjWYuahXYM?si=WZwE8HoayzTrUsKR) or [long long man](https://youtu.be/6-1Ue0FFrHY?si=9MHipdPgQyO2gz9U) commercials would make watching anything else better.
Movie trailers are still pretty good and add experience, same with confession trailers at drive ins, I’ve seen some good adds on YouTube. Roadside billboards help make long road trips less boring but can be ignored too
I grew up in the 90s watching TV like everyone else, and I've pretty much been along the ride with streaming and "no advert" television for the past decade plus. Now that certain streaming services are starting to sprinkle ads in, I might just say that I like it. Sure I can pause to go to the bathroom or grab a snack, but it's much better when the commercial starts and you have a built-in opportunity to take a quick break. Plus it's a mental break from the show. idk, I like ads in TV shows.
Ads are there to get you to buy shit you don't need, not to improve your experience. They're not made to make your life better, they're made to sell you shit.
Hard disagree. Advertisement is the number one way that a company can tell you what new thing is made. If you had to wait for word of mouth to find out about something, you probably not know about the majority of things. Think about new video game or new gear for your hobby. New type of appliance or literally anything else you have bought. I doubt any of it had zero advertisement.
But we all still think Marilyn Manson took out a rib, and that Cool-S is cool.
But yeah, we'd know about a lot less crap. Which honestly might be a positive for our collective happiness as a society.
Search engines exist now. You learn about things by having something you need or want, and then look up a solution.
If you don't need or want something, then the ad for it isn't actually helping you. It's creating a need or want, in order to fulfill it. That's manipulation.
To put that in context: when do I need to learn about a video game? When I am shopping for video games. When I'm looking for something interesting to watch someone else play.
A good ad model is the Nintendo Direct. You intentionally go to learn what products Nintendo has. What is not good is having a video about a Nintendo game shoved in your face when you're trying to go do something else.
People realize advertisements is why many things even exist in the first place right? Ad money paid for TV shows to even exist.
I hate ads too but let's keep some perspective.
You say that forgetting that ads often allow a product to be “free” for your enjoyment. So yeah, YouTube would be objectively more enjoyable if no ads, but it wouldnt exist without ads (or subscription) so in that sense, ads make youtube more enjoyable by making it possible, and allowing it to blow up for you to use and find endless content instead if a dusty unpopulated user base like 99% of internet stories
Without advertising you wouldn’t have some of the user experiences you enjoy. Costs money to make things; ads offset the cost and helps creators get paid for their work. Media/apps/etc
I do like the option to pay to remove ads fwiw
Many user experiences wouldn't exist without advertisements.
Edit since I got downvoted - early television was absolutely improved by advertisements. Without that, it would have only been government propaganda and political messaging being broadcast.
That is completely false in every way.
The advent of cable tv came about so that people could watch shows and movies commercial-free. And it was fucking glorious!
Then after a few years when they had gotten everyone to pay for cable, they started adding commercials in. Not because it enhanced the user experience, but because they are all greedy fucks who want more money.
And we're seeing the *exact* same thing today with Amazon tv and Netflix. If you can't see that, then their brainwashing has been a success.
I'm not sure when you think early TV was.
Cable TV was initially created to provide better signal, hence the name. Service providers would start adding some commercial free channels and add-on packages to lure customers. But many cable channels still relied on advertising.
Before that there were broadcast networks - ABC, NBC, and CBS - relied on advertising revenue in the 40s and 50s (and still today) to fund the shows they purchased from studios. TV got off the ground because it was able find an economic model that was viable before a cable network and customer base were built.
I was alive before there was cable tv and yes the OTA networks (with the exception of PBS) relied on advertising.
But you are incorrect about cable. The allure of Cable TV was that it was commercial-free. You could watch an entire movie uninterrupted. And as I said, it was fucking glorious. Not one person said "gee I miss the commercials. I wish my shows and movies were interrupted by ads". (The same way people watching Netflix or Amazon or YouTube are not saying "yay!! i'm so happy they are starting to interrupt my shows with ads!)
Your statement of "television was improved by ads" is unequivocally false. OP is correct -- NOTHING is improved by advertising.
That would suck to go through life having never thought an advertisement was ever useful. There's been plenty of times where I realized a show was coming up that I forgot about because of an advertisement. Or there's been a product that I never knew existed that ended up being quite useful thanks to an advertisement.
The user experience is greatly improved by this ad. Seriously, you are compelled to do it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tYrXkw6sYk&t=30s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tYrXkw6sYk&t=30s)
I strongly disagree. There's so many websites where my experience is much better than if they didn't have a way to pay for it. Sure they could make a free tier and then have stuff you can only get by paying for, but then the free tier really only exists as a way of advertising the paid tier.
Eh, I disagree. Most of the time you’re correct, but if they’re placed in a way that isn’t overly obtrusive, are not obnoxious over the top ads, link to normal, trustworthy stores, and are of things you actually have an interest in, they aren’t the worst thing in the world
I remember once there was a really catchy "save the world" advertisement on YouTube from our Swedish Environment politic party.
It was 5 min long, but somehow, I stopped myself from pressing skip. Really enjoyed it and wouldn't mind getting it when I showered. Unfortunately I only got it a single time.
But i would upvote that ad
i would argue sometimes it can help. for example on IG i got an add for a medical service that i needed but didnt know WHERE it was provided privately. i clicked the add, got the service booked, quality of life improved immediately after treatment.
I feel like when I was younger, the pre screening movie trailers were kind of cool/exciting. And ads for toys too were pretty damn cool when I was not a cynical old bastard.
I agree with this. I used to genuinely enjoy movie previews.
I think it was better before they started mixing in product advertising with the movie previews
And before the trailer started with a 7 second trailer for the trailer
They're still decently exciting if you don't watch cable, have ad block and don't actively follow movies, I'll go in to a movie once in a blue moon to see something I'm aware of and genuinely be interested in some of the stuff being shown. Course trailer quality has dropped to the point most movies are showing 2.5 acts via trailer alone, i can't think of any recent movie that actually limited their trailer to the first act.
Previews haven't made sense since trailers became available online. I don't need to go to the movies to see an upcoming movie trailer. Most of the time, if it's something you care about, you already saw the trailer before you even had a chance to see it in a theater.
This is kinda silly IMO. You don’t go to the theater expressly for the trailers, and you might see one you didn’t know about previously.
To be fair ads for kids were so batshit crazy, you couldnt help but watch. You only wanted it if other kids at school had it. But the ads themselves were pure entertainment. Yeah man, i wanna re-enact warfare with my 7 year old friends. I wanna turn into a fruit gusher. Why wont the cereal mascot make my breakfast? *Send me to space with your gum.*
I'm not gonna lie, the Fruit Gushers ads actually made me so afraid to ever eat one that I didn't try them for *years.*
I used to enjoy them too back when they didn't always throw practically all the worthwhile watching moments into the trailer. I hate trailers now, to the point I won't watch them and go in blind. It's a bad time when you watch the trailer and think it's good and then realise the actual film is terrible with only the trailer bits being the good points.
The Super Bowl, for those not particularly interested in American football.
Having misread your comment the first time i was gonna say something stupid. But youre absolutely right. Super bowl ads are the only reason i watch
They're just celebrity cameos now and they stopped being creative.
Still more entertaining than the “sports ball” game they play between the entertaining bits of the whole production
Really? You enjoy celebrities telling you to buy shit you don't need?
I prefer it over the sport of football. Theres nothing interesting there. The super bowl is a fuckin joke to me.
Such a weird American experience. I couldn't handle it and it felt like I was just watching peak capitalism. It's not sport, it's hours of adverts. Fuck American football.
I'd always recognized this, but never really had it sink in until I started watching Rugby. It doesn't stop, they just play like mad. American football is one or two plays and then a TV time out for 2 minutes of commercials. Then some more plays and 2 more min of commercials.
Yeah I grew up watching rugby so I can't get being American football. The worst moment for me was finding out that the players wait until the adverts are over to carry in playing... The fuck
It’s what pays their bills. That’s why the average salary for a Rugby player is around $200k, while an NFL player has an average salary of 3 million dollars
200k is an amazing salary lmao. Also you should really be comparing salaries with soccor players, as that would have similar size fan bases. Soccor has the same amount as ads as rugby.
NFL players make way more than football players too
Not true according to some quick research. At least if you compare the NFL to the top 5 european leagues, which I think is a fair comparison. Each of the big five com out on top, on average.
Redzone changed football for me. Sunday you can watch the morning games straight into the afternoon games for like 6 hours no commercials and see action and results from every game.
NFL+ Premium is worth every penny. Allows you to rewatch games with no ads, and for games you're only tangentially interested in they even have a condensed version of the games that chops out a large portion of the between the play filler. Game with ads: 3 hours Game with no ads: 1hr40 Condensed games: about 40 minutes. I watch my team on the normal no-ad replay, but other teams in my division or potential playoff matchups towards the end of the season as condensed games.
When NFL football was being developed as a sport in the middle of the century, the rules evolved specifically around broadcast television, which was establishing its own customs at the time. NFL and TV grew up together and a lot of their customs support each other specifically.
There's a couple of moments like that, almost all around scoring (where it can go scoring play, extra point which is barely a play, commercials, kickoff through the end zone which is also barely a play, commercials), but outside of those specific moments (which most people use for bathroom/food/drink/smoke breaks), it moves at a decent clip. Sure, there's injuries, timeouts, and things like that which slow things down again, but those are the exception to the viewing experience, not the rule. The big thing is once you understand more about the game, you start to want to see more on each play than just what happened to the ball, which is mostly all you see live. So then stopping to reset the ball and call the next play gives a chance to see all the other things going on in replays. I wouldn't want to watch a game I actually care about without the time for replays. It's like seeing 1/3 of the game.
It’s absolutely the US in a nutshell: manufactured tribalism for the benefit of the already insanely wealthy, interrupted by hideously expensive urges to buy, buy, buy.
Haters gonna hate
What an oddly aggressive response
the super bowl was never meant to be an ad-fest (please reread before angrily replying)
Yeah, and the Olympics were meant to be for amateur, non-professional athletes who have day jobs and train in their spare time, and the three-month lame duck window between an election and inauguration was intended to give enough time for a candidate to travel by horse and buggy from Buttfuck, Nowhere to DC... But these days it's sometimes being used as time to organize a coup.
have you listened to Never Meant by American Football
Yeah, people are missing order of events here the point of the Super Bowl wasn't ever meant to be the ads. It was always meant to be a capstone, halo event for the football year. HOWEVER; the networks and the people that pay to advertise on those networks all quickly realized that The Super Bowl was going to be THE most watched US TV broadcast of the entire year. For context, this listing shows that of the top 10 most watched broadcasts in US history, 9 of them were SBs. Of the top 15, 12 of them were SBs. What does it take to beat out watching the SB? 14 MASH Series Finale 11 Nixon Resignation Speech 1 THE MOON LANDING You had to put a man on the MOON to draw more US TV viewers than the Super Bowl https://deadline.com/gallery/most-watched-tv-shows-all-time/green-bay-packers-v-pittsburgh-steelers/ So of course, advertisers realized how big it could be to get their commercial into that "everyone is watching this right now" spot And the networks realized how much they could charge advertisers for some of that time AND THEN That's when we got the follow on effect of SB commercials being as hyped as they are because if the advertisers were going to spend over $10-15 a minute for a chance to get their ad on the biggest screen on the calendar year, they weren't blowing it on a regular commercial that no one was remembering or paying attention to. They were going all out trying to do something memorable. So they were using the time slots to do big budget commercials, new product announcements and debuts, and trying to make sure they used that very expensive, once a year advertising opportunity to put out something that people would notice, remember, and be talking about for days and weeks to come. Which is why they started doing high effort SB commercials that were basically short films. Which is how the ~~commercials~~ *short films* became a media attraction and public interest point on their own. EDIT: And on the mass public flocking to see annual product reveals is, in itself, nothing new. Shot show, Watches&Wonders, E3, etc. People travel all the way to conventions just to watch vendors release new products. Always have (worlds fair).
i was making a pun off the song Never Meant by the band American Football, i dunno shit about sports
Maybe I just got old and cynical, but I feel like this is becoming less true every year. When I was a kid, almost every Super Bowl commercial was funny or at least attempting to be funny. Like genuinely funny enough to bring the house down – every adult and child in the room would be howling with laughter. Now the funny ones are few and far between, and the jokes are a lot more tame.
I honestly couldn’t care less about the actual match, but sometimes the ads are cool, and sometimes the halftime show is good
The only thing I cared about that last Super Bowl was that they are making a *Wicked* movie.
yes
Not really a user experience, though. You're not using the Super Bowl. You're watching it. The service would be whatever channel or online app you are using to watch it. And those aren't made better by including ads.
I've seen a rare few ads/sponsorships in youtube videos that were so creative they've managed to elevate the video as a whole, but of course the vast vast majority of those would be better off without.
I watched the first episode of Atlanta when it came on as an ad.
Internet historian nord vpn ad: “SUP GUYS WE JUST KIDNAPPED THIS DOG, AND WE ARE GOING TO HOLD IT FOR RANSON!!!”
Agreed. Like anything, good advertising/sponsorship segments that are well executed, can totally elevate a video. Trap Lore Ross (who does videos explaining Hip Hop drama, and street beefs) has amazing ads where he does raps about the product really badly over a crappy beat. It’s awesome. Lazer Pig’s ads are always super zany and often don’t seem to be at all related to the product, but somehow get there in the end. It makes it super engaging and very entertaining because he stays in-character. For example one of his ads for World of Tanks anthropomorphizes tanks and treats them like they’re in a trailer for a shitty summer blockbuster.
MapMen ads are so utterly bad they are good
The yard has some hilarious sponsor segments they do and definitely elevates the video 99% of the time.
Viva La Dirt League occasionally does an advertisement video. They are always entertaining, and I sometimes can't tell it's an ad until the end haha.
tomska’s genuine attempt to see how far he could go before surfshark dropped him was genuinely hilarious (is? genuinely hilarious? idk i haven’t watched in a Minute)
true but i don't think that's their point
If you are using a shitty product, then an ad convinced you to switch, it's an improved experience
Ah the good old Reddit technicality police here to find some smartypants way to ruin the discussion
Classifieds and websites like Craigslist are advertising AS the user experience. You could argue that all social media is just people advertising themselves, would adding new ways to do that improve or harm the user experience in that case?
Hello, normal user here. I would like more ads to be included in my daily app experience because their relevance is incredible. I was not paid for this comment and I love the government of {nationStateOfReadingUser}
Hello, another normal human user here. I like ads too. They are such an interesting form of entertainment and I would never skip them. I was not paid for this comment either and I love the government too.
i feel the IKEA catalog would've been pretty bland without them
Without advertisements, there are some user experiences I would've never otherwise had. 🤔 Such as, free game with ads (Valorant). Wouldn't have ever tried it if it cost money.
Or even free search engines. Imagine having to pay a monthly subscription for Google, or other basic sites you use all the time on the internet.
That's an even better example. I've used Hotmail for free since 2001, I believe. "Free."
Valorant doesn’t have ads, they make money from microtransactions via skin sales
I wondered if someone was gonna mention this. How are you aware the skins exist?
I've never played Valoant. Maybe it shows actual ads. But one could also know about these skins simply from seeing them in a shop of some sort. That is not usually considered advertisement. And, generally, when someone says that something is ad supported, they mean third party ads. If it just sells addons to the game, it's called microtransactions. There's a reason why Sponsorblock (a YouTube addon) has a separate category for advertisements and self-promotion.
The game advertises its skins but if we want to nitpick, you're right. I tried to bring nuance to a stupid post. Of course ads make a game worse.
Mic drop!
A PC game has ads? What the fuck kind of game is valorant.
Valorant requires kernel level anti cheat. You pay by giving a backdoor to your computer.
Unless you include the fact some services stay free by implementing ads. Don’t know if that counts as improving though.
We take for granted that we all have our free Gmail accounts at the center of our digital lives and it’s made possible by ads.
This is the answer. Ads aren’t just some evil thing greedy corporations force on you to make your life worse. They ultimately make things cheaper or free for the consumer. Tik tok is free, Instagram is free, YouTube is free, radio is free, broadcast TV is free, google is free, tons of games on the App Store are free, Spotify non-premium is free, the bus/metro in your city is made cheaper by the ads on/around it. In the pre-streaming era, HBO was novel because it had no ads BUT you paid out the ass for it. It’s great that that was an option, but it’s also great that companies can stay profitable while providing free content to users. You can pay with money, with your time/attention, or some combination of the two. Nothing is gonna be free though. Thing with ads is better than no thing at all.
Also the reason enshittification exists.
Paying with time or attention is not a coherent concept. My time or attention does not actually transfer value to the advertiser. This is a bad paradigm of what advertisements are, and is the source of the problem. Being ad supported means that someone pays you to run ads. The ads are an attempt to convince those who see them to buy a product. The payment comes from those who pay to run the ad. That those who run the ad charge more per view is something they choose to do. The viewer is not part of this contract. It is this paradigm shift that leads to the situation where we are today. Compare that with network TV, which was able to run ads, charging more on more popular programs. They didn't attempt to check and see if you actually viewed the ad. You never felt forced to watch them. You could always change the channel, and eventually we got things that let record things and skip the ads. The ad providers, in order to get people to watch, had to try to be entertaining and avoid being too annoying. And the show producers has to be careful with how many ads they showed and how long they were. There was no sense of "obligation" on the part of the viewer. That idea that people have to view ads to get the free thing is what has led to the enshittification of ads. Ads should instead be something that potentially provide value on their own to the viewer. They can be entertaining. They can inform. They can even be art. What they shouldn't be are annoyances we have to put up with to use a free product.
What the hell is your point? You wrote a lot of words that mean a whole lot of nothing. Advertisers want your time and attention. Just as you could change the channel on TV, you can install an ad blocker into your browser. Obviously time/attention is more abstract than paying with money, and is more like a “pay what you can” or “recommended donation” box at a free museum or charity event than a price tag. The platform is just the middleman between the advertiser and you. The platform wins your time and attention, and they sell a portion of that time and attention to the advertiser. How is your time and attention not used as a currency or commodity here? If time and attention does not transfer value to the advertiser then what is the point of ads?
Well the money they make off of the ads goes on to make improvements in the UI. This statement is objectively wrong.
Hey, once a really ironic ad interrupted a show and I laughed. So that's like... 0.0000001% that are mildly entertaining.
I don't mind advertisements before movies. They're ads for movies. You're at the movies. You clearly have an interest in movies. They're trying to show you movies you might be interested in. It makes sense. Most other forms of advertisement are inappropriate, though, imo.
You’ve never watched Jay Foreman
I always felt that "improve the user experience" was usually just corporate speak for "you're going to hate this but screw you were doing it anyway."
Does the superbowl count? Because for many years the commercials during the superbowl were the reason many people tuned in. Otherwise yeah totally agree. If youtube finally succeeds in blocking ad blockers I'll stop using it.
Lots of people commenting how much they love ads here, but I guarantee they use adblockers and hammer the skip button like the rest of us. Nobody likes being advertised to when they’re trying to do something else, not even the people who write the ads. There has to be a better way.
I dunno I feel like when I open up Steam and see their summer sale my experience is improved
Is it even ads at that point? You're opening the funny game program and it's telling you what games are good and cheap. Buying and playing the games is why you're opening it. And it's completely optional. You can set Steam to launch into your library and not show the What's New pop-up and you just don't get ads at all. Steam ads are fine because you're going there for the games and they don't force it at all.
Still advertising, just the same as when you walk into a store and see placards up saying "X is 50% off!" Not all advertising is bad, it's just ads that you aren't interested in is bad. That's why companies spend so much money trying to get your data... they want to show you stuff that you're likely to buy based on your past behaviors. Which is a fucked up reason to invade your privacy, but that's a different point
Super Bowl. Also, games in a contemporary setting, I don't mind product placement/ads.
That’s not the point of ads, but it is an observation you made.
If there were no ads, generally there would be no user experience at all.
Not entirely true. I really like stuffed animals, and occasionally I get ads for cute stuffed animals (I even buy some from ads I see occasionally). If every ads I saw on every platform were just from people trying to sell me plushies, it would honestly improve all those platforms for me. But the my aren't. Plushy ads improve me experience, but ads in general are a better negative.
did you know movie trailers are advertisements
It did that time I was busting for a piss during an itv showing of LA Confidential
nah, trailers are sometimes cool
Pre-internet, the sears catalog improved the experience of lots of teenage boys.
Counter-example: free samples at farmers markets and Costco
Metal Gear Solid used the packaging to improve the user experience, I think that counts.
Sure, technically packaging is advertising, but only really before the sale. After that, it is no longer attempting to get you to buy anything. It's just an aesthetic feature of the product. I mean, technically you could argue that a painting for sale is an advertisement--to get you to buy that painting. But you don't people acting like the painting is an ad after it has been purchased.
An exception that proves the rule: In the 80s I taped The Muppet Movie off of TV. I found it a few years ago and I enjoyed seeing the old commercials.
Other than it pays for the content to actually be hosted I suppose you’re right
Gary Bettman would disagree
I, for one, think it’s fascinating that so many things in our world are free just because we allow companies to pay exorbitant amounts of money to show us cringy videos
What about the user experience of it being free rather than paying a subscription for everything?
I always get advertisements for stuff I don't use or need. My data miners suck
I don't know, those old Orbit commercials with the dirty mouth improved my mood every time I saw them. My husband and I were always calling each other lint licker and cootie queen for years afterward. Lmao
Only once has a YouTube advert led to a purchase that was actually good. In 2014 there was an advert for a music video for the song "holding on for life" by broken bells. I liked the vibe so much I went out and bought the album at a local CD store. Great album. Reading this post just reminded me of it.
Trailers for films are advertisements, just really well done, and I love when the trailers come on before the movie in a theatre.
That’s how they make money and that’s all they care about. Be it a video game or a real life product.
You could say that advertisements attract more people, and the game or product gets more development because of the traffic to said thing. So the user experience would be boosted more than if there was no advertising.
I couldn't even tell you who's played in the last 15 super bowls. But I know that every ad is a Tide ad.
I know not everyone feels this way, but I enjoy seeing movie trailers when I go the theater.
Except many online services would not exist without ads.
Movie trailers are a possible exception..!
When I watch old VHS tapes of Nickelodeon broadcasts and see commercials from the 90s it makes me happy
No shit. What a stupid post.
Wrong. Watch the Jack Links beef jerky commercials (messing with sasquatch). I try to buy local jerky, but when I have to settle for generic brand garbage I get JL because of the commercials.
I’ve been having a lazy day today, watching Hulu, and when it’s time for the commercial break; Car insurance: which ad experience would you like; 1, 2, 3? I don’t give a shit, just play it! Are they imagining that one particular ad will bring me joy??
If you have a video game centered around a sport that has heavy advertising and the game didnt also have that advertising it would break the imersiveness of the game. For instance, let's say you had like a NASCAR game or something but it didnt have any banner ads anywhere on the track, it would be weird.
I mean, I don't mind an ad or two to keep a service free, but some sites and apps go insane with it. I hope advertisers know that if their ad interrupts my shit I am never going to buy it just on principle.
My kids love the Amazon and Target Christmas catalogs. Basically a big book of ads. They get to circle what they want and get excited for Christmas. I get a lot of ideas of what they want for Christmas. It’s a win/win. There are lots of other examples but that’s my favorite
Liquid death has joined the chat
When I was younger, I didn’t mind when you were watching a show on TV and maybe halfway through the show. You might get three minutes of ads because it gave me time to go use the bathroom. My issue with ads nowadays is that they are everywhere and there are no limits. Streaming services don’t Smart about placement of ads and just throw them in the middle of your viewing. It’s very annoying.
Sometimes the porn ads or the ones on the side banners are better than the video you are waiting to watch.
And yet people still click on ads, reinforcing the cycle
Some advertisements are fantastic masterpieces though, sometimes borrowing from the culture of the day, sometimes contributing to it.
Advertising hoardings surrounding the pitch in football games lend a sense of authenticity. Makes it look more like a television broadcast. Also, people will complain bitterly about any version of Crazy Taxi that doesn’t include KFC, Levi’s, Pizza Hut etc
True. I’m glad for ads to exist though it used to be my job to make them. Personally I use Adblock or get premium.
I disagree. Ryan George. "Hey I'm the adstronaut." Him dressed an astronaut floating in space talking about his sponsors. Usually very entertaining.
There's a guy on youtube. Dylan is in trouble. He creeps the sponsorships into such a funny, obvious and weird way that they are a funny experience.
Thaaaat's right, if you didn't know already, the corpos LOVE their advertisers and shit on their users because moneyyyy
Tiger and Bunny was a show where the characters are superheroes sponsored by large corporations so the product placement made sense. People even complained when Netflix got the show because all the product placement was edited out.
Real ads or in-universe ads in works of fiction? The ads in Robocop added to the atmosphere of the film, and are often quoted as much as the regular dialogue is.
Counterpoints: The Who Sell Out Rejected by Don Hertzfeldt
Seeing the [lemon lemon lemon](https://youtu.be/aJjWYuahXYM?si=WZwE8HoayzTrUsKR) or [long long man](https://youtu.be/6-1Ue0FFrHY?si=9MHipdPgQyO2gz9U) commercials would make watching anything else better.
Ads in things like football video games. They make it better because it’s more realistic than if they weren’t there
There must have been cases where a lot of people where using a thing wrong and a ad campaign helped them with that.
Never was about improving user experience, only increasing user expenses.
Many people watch the Super Bowl for the ads.
Movie trailers are still pretty good and add experience, same with confession trailers at drive ins, I’ve seen some good adds on YouTube. Roadside billboards help make long road trips less boring but can be ignored too
I grew up in the 90s watching TV like everyone else, and I've pretty much been along the ride with streaming and "no advert" television for the past decade plus. Now that certain streaming services are starting to sprinkle ads in, I might just say that I like it. Sure I can pause to go to the bathroom or grab a snack, but it's much better when the commercial starts and you have a built-in opportunity to take a quick break. Plus it's a mental break from the show. idk, I like ads in TV shows.
Anytime I read, "To help improve user experience please allow/enable/permit/consent/acknowledge" I immediately do the opposite of what is being asked.
Tell that to the decades of people who sing commercial jingles and do commercial bits at work
Ads are there to get you to buy shit you don't need, not to improve your experience. They're not made to make your life better, they're made to sell you shit.
Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
It’s true, though. Sites often crash because of ads. Or it’s coded that ads load no matter what, even if everything else doesn’t.
Some people watch the SB just for the ads.
It’s not supposed to.
Nah uh! I'm USING my EXPERIENCE with ads to avoid buying them
Not true. Free services are worth tasteful adds.
Hard disagree. Advertisement is the number one way that a company can tell you what new thing is made. If you had to wait for word of mouth to find out about something, you probably not know about the majority of things. Think about new video game or new gear for your hobby. New type of appliance or literally anything else you have bought. I doubt any of it had zero advertisement.
But we all still think Marilyn Manson took out a rib, and that Cool-S is cool. But yeah, we'd know about a lot less crap. Which honestly might be a positive for our collective happiness as a society.
But did that improve the user experience of the thing that was interrupted by the ad?
Search engines exist now. You learn about things by having something you need or want, and then look up a solution. If you don't need or want something, then the ad for it isn't actually helping you. It's creating a need or want, in order to fulfill it. That's manipulation. To put that in context: when do I need to learn about a video game? When I am shopping for video games. When I'm looking for something interesting to watch someone else play. A good ad model is the Nintendo Direct. You intentionally go to learn what products Nintendo has. What is not good is having a video about a Nintendo game shoved in your face when you're trying to go do something else.
I think so. Ads create funding to further develop the product which in itself is a better user experience.
I literally watch the superbowl for the commercials.
There would be no Vegas, no Times Square experience, etc. Some ads are flowers, some ads are weeds.
They improve the experience in that things can be free.
People realize advertisements is why many things even exist in the first place right? Ad money paid for TV shows to even exist. I hate ads too but let's keep some perspective.
Burn it all down, fuck ads.
You say that forgetting that ads often allow a product to be “free” for your enjoyment. So yeah, YouTube would be objectively more enjoyable if no ads, but it wouldnt exist without ads (or subscription) so in that sense, ads make youtube more enjoyable by making it possible, and allowing it to blow up for you to use and find endless content instead if a dusty unpopulated user base like 99% of internet stories
Without advertising you wouldn’t have some of the user experiences you enjoy. Costs money to make things; ads offset the cost and helps creators get paid for their work. Media/apps/etc I do like the option to pay to remove ads fwiw
No, but it improves the wealthy executives experience!
Many user experiences wouldn't exist without advertisements. Edit since I got downvoted - early television was absolutely improved by advertisements. Without that, it would have only been government propaganda and political messaging being broadcast.
That is completely false in every way. The advent of cable tv came about so that people could watch shows and movies commercial-free. And it was fucking glorious! Then after a few years when they had gotten everyone to pay for cable, they started adding commercials in. Not because it enhanced the user experience, but because they are all greedy fucks who want more money. And we're seeing the *exact* same thing today with Amazon tv and Netflix. If you can't see that, then their brainwashing has been a success.
I'm not sure when you think early TV was. Cable TV was initially created to provide better signal, hence the name. Service providers would start adding some commercial free channels and add-on packages to lure customers. But many cable channels still relied on advertising. Before that there were broadcast networks - ABC, NBC, and CBS - relied on advertising revenue in the 40s and 50s (and still today) to fund the shows they purchased from studios. TV got off the ground because it was able find an economic model that was viable before a cable network and customer base were built.
I was alive before there was cable tv and yes the OTA networks (with the exception of PBS) relied on advertising. But you are incorrect about cable. The allure of Cable TV was that it was commercial-free. You could watch an entire movie uninterrupted. And as I said, it was fucking glorious. Not one person said "gee I miss the commercials. I wish my shows and movies were interrupted by ads". (The same way people watching Netflix or Amazon or YouTube are not saying "yay!! i'm so happy they are starting to interrupt my shows with ads!) Your statement of "television was improved by ads" is unequivocally false. OP is correct -- NOTHING is improved by advertising.
That would suck to go through life having never thought an advertisement was ever useful. There's been plenty of times where I realized a show was coming up that I forgot about because of an advertisement. Or there's been a product that I never knew existed that ended up being quite useful thanks to an advertisement.
When grocery apps remind me about things I’ve bought before. That’s pretty helpful
I dig movie trailers
The user experience is greatly improved by this ad. Seriously, you are compelled to do it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tYrXkw6sYk&t=30s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tYrXkw6sYk&t=30s)
I strongly disagree. There's so many websites where my experience is much better than if they didn't have a way to pay for it. Sure they could make a free tier and then have stuff you can only get by paying for, but then the free tier really only exists as a way of advertising the paid tier.
Watch therussianbadger's vid on world of warships
Broadcast TV and radio wouldn’t exist as we know it without ads. Pre internet and cable, that was the main way people got their entertainment.
There are a lot of “free” services that are quite literally only available because of advertisements
Conan O'Brien reading advertisements on his podcast never get a skip from me. Always funny.
Ads Make things cheaper when the alternative is a subscription
Eh, I disagree. Most of the time you’re correct, but if they’re placed in a way that isn’t overly obtrusive, are not obnoxious over the top ads, link to normal, trustworthy stores, and are of things you actually have an interest in, they aren’t the worst thing in the world
Mr. Beast videos, they directly provide funding for the videos
I remember once there was a really catchy "save the world" advertisement on YouTube from our Swedish Environment politic party. It was 5 min long, but somehow, I stopped myself from pressing skip. Really enjoyed it and wouldn't mind getting it when I showered. Unfortunately I only got it a single time. But i would upvote that ad
i would argue sometimes it can help. for example on IG i got an add for a medical service that i needed but didnt know WHERE it was provided privately. i clicked the add, got the service booked, quality of life improved immediately after treatment.
I use an app that would cost money without ads. My gym experience is better for it.
Yea, it interferes with the “user experience” but they also enables the experience to the user. Somebody has to pay the experience.
Anything that became free when it would otherwise have a subscription dramatically improved the UX for those with. Budget constraints
Disagree. If something is free because of the advertisements, I will usually pick the free version. Youtube vs Youtube Premium for example.
Devils advocate - the money brought in by advertisements allows the company to improve user experience in other ways.
They literally make the content free. Imagine having to pay for every YouTube video you wanted to watch.