Microsoft Shows Off Interactive Kinect Ads

[Andy Chalk]

Microsoft Shows Off Interactive Kinect Ads

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Microsoft is waving its NUads at the world with a video that shows off the Kinect-powered interactive advertising system in action.

I've often thought that the one thing my daily online experience really needs is a new and better way for insipid advertising to intrude upon my time. Passivity is for chumps, after all, so why not encourage people to spread the brain-numbing chaff as far as they possibly can with nothing more than a voice command? That's just one of the new features of Microsoft's new Kinect-powered advertising [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/110987-Microsoft-Planning-Interactive-In-Game-Ads-for-Kinect] system. Got a thing for Sam Elliott's latest Dodge Ram voiceover? Tweet it to every one of your followers with a simple spoken word!

Or maybe you're sitting on your couch watching that ad that your "friend" has so thoughtfully dumped on your lap and you're thinking to yourself, "My goodness, I surely would like to go out and purchase one of those shiny new Dodge Ram trucks. If only I knew where to find them!" Well, fret no more, my fellow consumer, because with the power of Kinect you can look up local information relating to national ads, including such things as the location of your nearest Dodge dealer. And if you're sick of taking crap from all those Bob Seger-loving Chevy types, with just a wave of your hand you can vote for Dodge as the best super-duty truck manufacturer of all time. Of all time!

There's more, but I don't want to spoil the whole video for you and you probably get the idea anyway. So instead, I'll let Microsoft's Mark Kroese lay it out for you. "Typically when I talk about new technologies, I try to avoid hyperbole," he wrote on the Microsoft Advertising blog [http://community.microsoftadvertising.com/blogs/advertising/archive/2011/06/21/yes-we-cannes-nuads-and-kinect-deliver-on-the-promise-of-interactive-tv.aspx]. "But in this case of NUads and Kinect, I'm here to say that it will change television as we know it - forever."

Kroese is a highly-paid expert in the field who can make terms like "social advocacy" relevant to television spots about Coke-sucking longhairs and I certainly don't want to appear as though I'm challenging his authority in such matters. But I do feel compelled to point out that I spent a lot of money on a PVR so I could dodge ads on the TV and I will generally skip online videos, no matter how awesome my friends promise me they are, if I have to sit through a 15-second promo spot first. Maybe I'll learn to love the marketing machine once I can properly embrace it by waving and yelling at my set. But honestly, I'm not holding my breath.


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[Canadish]

It's claiming the video is private...might need a new one linked there Mr Chalk.

 

[KeyMaster45]

Might not have been private when it was first put up but its possible Microsoft realized their blunder and yanked it from the public eye before an epic shit-storm got brewing. Though lets be honest, there's no way they won't avoid one with this.

Honestly I think they're a bunch of greedy fools for even considering this. Want an easy way to turn away potential customers? Simply force them to sit through ads in content they've already paid for. So yeah, I this Mark Kroese needs a reality check about what consumers want, and what we want is for advertisements to stay the hell out of our absurdly expensive games.

-EDIT-

Haha, the guy's already taken the video down on his blog.

 

[pyroghast]

they are going about this the wrong way when people turn on there xbox the want to play a game not waste there time with adds. i would have absolutely no problem with this add campaign if they made it fit the platform like for example, you click a coke add and you play a bowling game that has coke bottles for pins and a coke add covered ball am i the only one that would like it better this way?

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

So i shell out for kinect and a gold sub and you still want to advertise at me? How's about jog on you money grubbing fucks.

Just though bill hicks could clear up my thoughts on adverting/ers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

 

[Rad Party God]

Hmmm... tweeting about a useless ad that I saw in my Xbox doesn't sound too appealing to me.

In fact, anything related to ads just doesn't sound too appealing to me, no matter how futuristic or neat it is.

Unless it's a shark coming out of a movie poster.

 

[josemlopes]

Fucking no, just no. I dont mind when they advertise stuff like newly released DLC since people can see what is out there now for their games but stuff like Coca-Cola, Adidas and other crap? FUCK YOU!

 

[Vie]

"XBox Skip this shit"
"XBox Adblock"
"Xbox This ad is not relevant"

Yeh I can see lots of uses for this.

 

[Don Reba]

Just though bill hicks could clear up my thoughts on adverting/ers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

So true. I block ads on the web, on the desktop ? if there were glasses for blocking them in real life, I would pay a lot to have them.

 

[jpoon]

This is some lame shit, I would refuse to use that crap just on principle alone.

 

[garjian]

...who shares coca-cola adverts, or any adverts for that matter? (well... unless theyre hilarious... but those "identifying our target market" ads seem to have little in the way of humour... teenagers dancing... you seriously think that has any power to get into people heads, even those of your target market?)

...who wants to receive e-mails about adidas products, that you cant even read on the platform you asked it to be sent to you from?

...people who work in advertising confuse me. its almost as if they arent human themselves. would they want to share cookie-cutter tv ads for fizzy drinks on their twitter? really?
do they go home and wish they could find a dealership for a car they just saw on tv seconds ago so they can spend a huge amount of money on a brand new one, without any prior research, and dont already know how to find one, or where the nearest one is?
theyre the same being as us, surely they understand that this isnt how people think... it baffles me :/

 

[Smooth Operator]

Yes, interactive ads, it's just what we always wanted! I am ordering my kinect now...

I have an even better idea! Let's start selling XBL spam bots, they are so cool! be sure to get yours now!

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

...who shares coca-cola adverts, or any adverts for that matter? (well... unless theyre hilarious... but those "identifying our target market" ads seem to have little in the way of humour... teenagers dancing... you seriously think that has any power to get into people heads, even those of your target market?)

...who wants to receive e-mails about adidas products, that you cant even read on the platform you asked it to be sent to you from?

...people who work in advertising confuse me. its almost as if they arent human themselves. would they want to share cookie-cutter tv ads for fizzy drinks on their twitter? really?
do they go home and wish they could find a dealership for a car they just saw on tv seconds ago so they can spend a huge amount of money on one without any prior research, and dont already know how to find one, or where the nearest one is?
theyre the same being as us, surely they understand that this isnt how people think... it baffles me :/

This x 1000

I've often wondered myself if advertisers are blind to the fact that we despise them with a passion. Do they live in an alternate reality to the rest of the universe.

 

[cjbos81]

I think I've just decided to never, ever purchase "kinect"!

 

[frago roc]

And to think the Xbox used to be about playing games...

 

[Stormz]

So....I pay 60$ a year to have gold, I pay 80 for games, and 150 for the kinect...and we STILL have to deal with advertisements? what fucking twats. They still don't have enough? Well now I know I'm never gonna get kinect.

Also escapist talking about annoying ads. Really funny with that new captcha system they have, that's soooo not annoying in the least.

 

[garjian]

...have you noticed that every one of these examples could be performed with a controller just as easily?

if you really wanted to do this, why wait for kinect? (well... why do it at all? but...)

 

[Metal Brother]

From this article:

But I do feel compelled to point out that I spent a lot of money on a PVR so I could dodge ads on the TV and I will generally skip online videos, no matter how awesome my friends promise me they are, if I have to sit through a 15-second promo spot first.

From the Escapist's code of conduct:

discussions instructing or otherwise advocating the circumvention of The Escapist's advertisements, site sponsors, security mechanisms, media protections or similar facilities will not be tolerated.

I'm not going to call this hypocrisy (although I certainly am tempted to, after seeing the "slide out ads" cover the site content this week, and after sitting through promo spots before practically every piece of video content on this site) but it does seem to me that the Escapist's editorial policy is out of alignment with the behavior it expects from (and enforces among) its users.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

insipid advertising to intrude upon my time.

Quoted from the Escapist? Oh ho ho that slaps me on the knee.

I feel real bad for that guy in the video, you can almost see him thinking "We all know this is bullshit"