Opus Magnum

Because of teaching class on Monday nights, I have taken to watching the CBS situation comedy “Two and a Half Men” as a streaming video from the network website .  This is a beautiful model.  The network delivers the program to me free of charge, and advertisers get to deliver messages to an audience that can’t fast-forward through or skip the spots.  Seems like a fair exchange all around.  Plus, in theory, CBS could gather a tiny bit of data from me in exchange for access to streaming video (which it doesn’t currently), and marketers could more precisely target messages to my demographics.

There have been a number of new ploys used lately to get the viewer to “engage” with the ads delivered during the streaming video.  One asks you to choose your next ad – this is likely done by the network ad sales folks to show that people are paying attention.  Some past ads have invited viewers to watch the next ad in the “series” by choice, effectively diverting the viewer from the show to pure product promotion. (more…)