Try not to scream: Ads are coming to Amazon's Alexa – and VR goggles It's time to let Benjamin Franklin know that there is a third inevitability in life. To death and taxes, we must add advertisements. Despite a backlash against Google in March for adding a movie ad to its Google Home voice-assistant [surely you mean "invite to our partner to be our guest and share its tale"? – ed.], and …
How will it be ruined? FTA: "VoiceLabs claims the messages will be the first "voice-first" advertising that people will love" [my emphasis]. You're going to love these adverts! Oh yes you will. You will, oh go on. </sarc>
People don't love adverts. At best they tolerate them (through gritted teeth) if they place more value on what they're getting in exchange for enduring the adverts (e.g. telly, radio, magazines) than on the time they spend on viewing/listening/skipping/blocking the adverts themselves. If this guy thinks people will "love" his adverts it'll be the first time people have ever loved any adverts. That seems quite unlikely (outside of his reality distortion field) so for that reason I will remain sceptical about his claims.
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@Shadmeister
A good point; there were some great adverts, well written and entertaining making them more of an amusing short with integral product placement than a typical "Buy our shit" advert.
The ones I remember date back to the 80s and 90s when (among other examples) a calamity prone and balding Gregor Fisher was flogging cigars. There was a lot of crap telly about then (we were so short of game show formats we had to licence 3-2-1 from Spain to keep Ted Rogers gainfully employed). There was also good telly but IME the good adverts tended to be better than the programming they were inserted into.
The problem now is the adverts have been racing the programming in a chase to the bottom, via the obstacle course of in program product placement, plus sponsorship book ending the ad breaks. And don't start me on those bloody radio adverts where two people are having a completely genuine conversation over coffee about a new type of roofing felt.
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"People don't love adverts. "
Yup, that was the bit that leaped off the screen and grabbed me by the goolies. The word "love" is overused by advertisers and PR creatures such that it no longer means what the rest of us think it means. They use to mean "like a lot". It's almost been bastardised as much as awesome.
This isn't adding advertising to Alexa per se, its enabling advertising in third party skills that you'd be enticed to add to your Echo. Amazon doesn't permit advertising by skills at the moment except as part of an audio stream enabled by Alexa (e.g. Pandora advertisements). I don't see them changing that policy in the foreseeable future since it would be a sure fire way to get users to dump their Echoes.
Saw it coming, and refused to buy either Alexa or their VR goggles. Google and Facebook are at least ad-supported services, so although their aggressive ad-pushing policies are gag-worthy, they are still understandable. Amazon sells goods. They don't need outside ad revenue. The propeller beanie with the attached webcam they slap on my head when I enter their store is enough. No ads, Jeff. No ads.
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From a years-old essay on internet advertising, published in The Atlantic: "Campaigns like this [targeted search ads] have 'no measurable short-term benefits,' the researchers concluded."
In other words, Wanamaker's paradox ("Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted... the problem is, I don't know which half") might be more like 95% waste and no measurable benefit.
YMMV
The trouble is, Ads do work. You can run experiments and show increased sales compared to a control group. You may not know which worked but you know some worked. You can also run surveys before and after to measure brand recognition. You can track Ad impression to click to purchase, in enough volume to generate significance. The Ad industry is not delusional and Universities are churning out a few grqduates who can tell the difference between statistically robust evidence and poor quality annecdotes. The Ad industry these days attracts some of the best statisticians.
If you're an Internet site then click-bait adverts like those served by Outbrain and Taboola can drive significant traffic to your site.
You really think that Meercats have done nothing to alter where people buy car insurance and Labrador puppies what they wipe with?
It's fashionable to deny advertising works - and generates upvoted on The Register - and has been for decades, but it just isn't true.
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@Shadmeister
Well to be fair, I have, just once. I normally use ad blockers and script blockers of course, but I don't mind disabling them on certain specific sites that I use frequently, don't have intrusive ads, and ads are their primary way of paying the bills. One of these sites which I use for anime related content once had a (static, no-audio, non-intrusive) sidebar ad for a figurine of a character I really liked from a show I enjoyed. It was affordable, and I liked it. So, this one particular time I clicked the ad and made a purchase. I guess advertising that is relevant, non-intrusive, and respectful of the audience can occasionally work. What a pity that the vast majority of advertising doesn't even fulfil a single one of these criteria let alone all three.
Adverwhats?
Even without an add-blocker, I just don't see them without explicitly looking for them.
Advertising as it is generally presented to the masses generally just doesn't work on me. Presumably the demographic I am part of just isn't important enough to tailor advertising for (it would have to be ads with a lot of easily-parsed technical detail about why a product is genuinely useful to me - there are products like that out there: I generally find them via a combination of hard searching, accident and reading datasheets).
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> i have never heard of anyone progressing a purchase through any advertising on a web site or other.
Largely, advertising isn't intended to make the viewer go and buy something. It's purpose is to put that brand (deep) in your head, so that, when you come to buy something of that ilk, that brand name is familiar (and comforting).
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I was almost considering an Echo until I found out you need to have various levels of membership to get the most out of it - Prime and Music Unlimited. Audio ads definitely kills the deal for me. Audio ads are bad enough on commercial radio.
As for 3D objects in a VR headset - way to kill the product dead before it even takes off.
What caught my eye is that they'd dangle a pair of Nike shoes in a VR shop window, or a can of Cuke on a table. Is there anyone in the western world (or other parts of the world for that matter) that aren't aware of things like Nike shoes and Cuke's caffeinated sugar water? Apparently the most widely known word in the world is "OK", the second is "Coca-cola" (but that may be apocryphal).
Presumably he's saying the only people who can afford to advertise on his platform is the very brands that have likely already reached saturation in their advertising reach.
Advertisers seem unable to see the difference between "we can" and " we should". Everything that can be exploited will be. Whether there is any appreciable gain for them is irrelevant to the agencies, but apparently also to those who pay the agencies for transmitting these ads.
My guess is that the target isn't the consumer, but the financial industry- doing this stuff makes the brands seem active and aggressive etc. and so keeps share prices higher.
Now, now.
Where the hell is the 'high-tech' in basically an answerphone connected to a server and appearing to be far, far more intelligent than it really is -- just another 'speech to - - -' device.
BUT give it a female name, a female voice and the stupid humans anthropomorphise like mad.
Then they give it attributes it has never had.
Mugs!
'Despite a backlash against Google in March for adding a movie ad to its Google Home voice-assistant [surely you mean "invite to our partner to be our guest and share its tale"? – ed.],'
I can't see any way to fit that in without rendering the sentence nonsense.
Anyway, that aside...
"a marketing analyst said devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home would account for 25 per cent of digital ads within the next three years."
Since I never intent to own one of these, if that meant 25% fewer adverts elsewhere, because they've moved to those devices, that's brilliant. Shame it doesn't mean that, though. Ho hum.
I think this is how it works:
"Look! Over there! Something without advertising!"
"What? We can't have that sort of thing! Grab it! Don't let it get away!"
By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising...kill yourself. Thank you. Just planting seeds, planting seeds is all I'm doing. No joke here, really. Seriously, kill yourself, you have no rationalisation for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show. Seriously, I know the marketing people: 'There's gonna be a joke comin' up.' There's no fuckin' joke. Suck a tail pipe, hang yourself...borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy, do something...rid the world of your evil fuckin' presence.
Bill Hicks
How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don’t you?
“What didya do today, honey?”
“Oh, we made ah, we made ah arsenic a childhood food now, goodnight. Yeah we just said, you know, is your baby really too loud? You know? Yeah, you know the mums will love it.”
Sleep like fucking children, don’t ya. This is your world, isn’t it?
The next part of that...
"I can just hear the advertisers in the audience now, 'Oh wow! Bill's going for angry denial, oh that's a big market!' Just quit it please. Just stop putting a fucking dollar amount on everything. 'Ooh, the 'pleading dollar', huge market right there!'. *starts fake crying* Just quit it. Just leave me alone, please!"
It could be worse.
Imagine if they implimented the ability for your device to determine you're having an asthma attack because it hears you're wheezing but no tschhh sound of an inhaler, so it calls paramedics.
Only this time it wasn't an asthma attack, the paramedics discover you with your trousers down your ankles and... well you can guess the rest...
That the powers that be are dystopian fiction readers or at least getting they're ideas from them.
In this instance go read transmetroplitan and wonder just how long before ebola cola and caribu eyes become a thing (and I'll never be partial to long pig even if it was vat grown).
"Is that another Echo covered in human or dog feces?"
"Yep."
"Oh well, hide it from Jeff and stick it in the special bin marked Echo RMAs over by the conference room."
"advertisers are desperate to squeeze themselves into" our anuses so that they can broadcast adverts 24/7 at 90 decibels to sell that extra jar of Soylent Peanut-like Butter Substance. "Now in handy suppository shaped jars! Available in the Amazon Fresh section of our store."
Quiet, Alexa.
The future advertisers wet dream will be when everyone is forced by King Trump to get these devices installed into every home "for national security" and every time you open your mouth a new product similar to what you just said is automatically ordered and shipped. And no one seems to mind or care what arrives anymore. Everything will seem broken, because it will be designed by marketing committees because people voted for corporations to take over without realizing it, or correcting it.
I don't ever recall the Star Trek NG crew having to wait for a bit while an advert played on the Holodeck. The aired show had adverts, but I never watched that. I only get to view clean shows now. No adverts. I pay extra for that where I can, and skip what I can't. Anyway, great use of augmented reality and VR: shove some real world products in there to remind the sheep where to get their Frosted Rat Flakes. "And now back to Middle Earth... brought to you by Klondike Bars! Who would you hew-ohh-ohh-hew for a Klondike Bar?!"
Hi, Frodo, what's happening?
"My giant feet are hurting, but not for long with fast actin' Tenactin!"
*sigh* Piss off, shorty.
*shuts off VR player and goes outside*
and every time you open your mouth a new product similar to what you just said is automatically ordered and shipped
I remember another sci-fi short (can't remember who by) that takes place in a world where perfect manufacturing capabilities means there is no scarcity of anything. So people are forced by law to consume, every day, every hour, in order to keep the factories working.
The higher status you are, the less you have to consume. The peak of the story comes where the protagonist finally meats someone at the pinnacle of society. That person is wearing old, comfortable clothes, only eats what they really want to and lives in a small, run-down house and the protagonist is overcome with looking to aspire to the situation where he doesn't have to consume endlessly.
In the advertisers heads, that's a perfect world. Unfortunately for us, a lot of consumers yearn to consume visibly too - and so the advertisers can continue to be a boil on the face of humainty.
I think they've factored in the cost of a certain percentage of people stopping using it, because they know most will put up with ads for Disney films appearing in replies.
As I understand the article, you'd only get advertisements from skills that have them embedded in some way. If you disable those skills, you can't get ads. For example, a skill that allows you to listen to broadcast radio would have to be enabled before you could listen then, therefore, be advertised to. Don't commit Alexicide, just murder kill the skill that has advertising. If asking Alexa herself for searches results in advertising, then, yeah, I'll commit Alexacide. All five of them.
Have an upvote sir - I have no idea what this skill is they are talking about either.
Mind you I'm not even sure what the point of these things is - can anyone with one enlighten me on what it does better than any of the older ways of playing music, making a to do list or searching the web?
I see your rationalization1) mechanisms are alive and well.
1) Rationalization is an attempt to logically justify immoral, deviant, or generally unacceptable behavior. In Freud’s classic psychoanalytic theory, rationalization is a defense mechanism, an unconscious attempt to avoid addressing the underlying reasons for a behavior.
Rationalizing an event may help individuals maintain self-respect or avoid guilt over something they have done wrong. In many cases, rationalization is not harmful, but continuous self-deception, when a person consistently makes excuses for destructive behavior, can become dangerous. (Source, more here.)
In my limited layman's experience, usually the key element that keeps people from getting out of abusive and/or co-dependant relationships. Generic quote: "It's just about tolerable right now because [reason]. But if [whatever] changes/happens, I'm outta here." Nope, you'll probably won't.
...."So if you are playing your new VR game on your Oculus later this year, don't be surprised to see a pair of Nike sneakers appearing in shop fronts, or a Coke can popping up on that table next to you."...
* * * Can we not make something / sell something with utility that's Ad-free Slurp-free anymore? Why is America always running the show... They have no scruples about selling out their granny for a dime!
yeah I made a spelling booboo on 'the cloud" deliberately to make a point: "teh klowd" is getting DUMB. er.
If you had your OWN "audio assistant" it would make more sense. Then you could customize it, NOT send every query through someone else's SPYWARE, and NOT have an "open mic" waiting for some listener to spy on your personal life with.
Because, if the signal or information NEVER leaves your personal equipment, then YOU are in control!
And I'd probably give it a more interesting name, that SOME might find offensive. Deliberately.
(and here we are with computers hundreds of times more powerful than the one that sent man to the moon, and NOBODY is running their own speech recognition stuff, instead relying on some cloud service that could potentially spy on everything we do, and NOW serve up DELIBERATE ADVERTISING, when OUR computers that we OWN, Win-10-nic notwithstanding, could be doing that WITHOUT the spying and advertising...)
So if you are playing your new VR game on your Oculus later this year, don't be surprised to see a pair of Nike sneakers appearing in shop fronts, or a Coke can popping up on that table next to you.
I kind of have no real issue with product placement like this, as long as it's below a certain level. Like in films, you'd be more likely to notice something standing out if it were unbranded, or a fake brand, than something you see everyday. it's when the brands are everywhere that it looks stupid, if every billboard or advert is for the same product, every laptop is a the same brand as the adverts etc. If it gets worked into the dialogue so it sounds unnatural. We'll set off for the mission, just after I've finished enjoying this cool, refreshing, Pepsi.
if it's just brand awareness, that's not an issue, if it's noticeable to the point it takes you out of the game, especially in VR, it'll be really annoying.
Product Placement. Two sides to this. Can be fine, can be annoying. Depends on usage.
Some video games get flack for this. Seen some people moan about Uncharted 4.
Why can't Nathan Drake own a Sony phone?
Why can't Elena FIsher own a PS1?
Perhaps because ND is owned by Sony. But needs a phone, why not use own make.
But then in The Last of Us EVERY games console in a house or shop was a PS3. But that was not an advert nor product placement as to play the game you needed one. I wonder if it was because there would be no copywrite issues.
... because she had banned any use of Alexa in our household, as soon as I announced that it was available on our Fire TV. The reason was that she cannot stand me (or anyone around) actually chatting with a computer. As a result neither me nor children got attached to it. One act of female sensibility and a small win for the whole family :)
"Nothing escapes the eyes of the ad men – as was made plain by a digital marketing conference earlier this week in which a marketing analyst said devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home would account for 25 per cent of digital ads within the next three years."
Not in my bloody house it won't! My house is a controlled sanctuary of calm and relaxation. We have no Sky, Virgin not even a Freeview device in sight. Of course we have the internet but with ad servers blocked at the point of entry to our abode. I have no choice of ads out in the big wide world, my home is my castle and I'll defend from the scumbag admen with my dying breath!
"VRFocus had a chat with Vertebrae's CEO and, as ad companies always are, he was full of energy and happiness about the opportunity to shove companies' products down millions of users' throats while talking about how much he respects those self-same users."
VERTEBRAE? How about Smugg Spynlss Cke-Flled MnyGrabbng Twt?
Fellow-commentards above have already done the Bill Hicks thing. But does anyone remember that very short sequence in Terry Gilliam's masterpiece "Brazil"?
The big truck is driving down what looks like a Scottish glen - but the road is lined with a continuous palisade of ads on both sides, so that people driving along it (unlike the camera) can't see anything except the ads.
That's twunts like these's vision of the future. They can shove it up where ideas like this came from, and then jiggle it about a bit.
OK, you can scream now. ®
I think it appropriate to use a short story[1] title here (going by the advertising industry's famed levels of end-user engagement):
"I have no mouth yet I must scream"
[1] Harlan Ellison. An apt description of a world run by an all-seeing computer with an utter lack of morals where the only people left in the world are kept alive in order to be tormented by the computer. Sort of a parable of Windows 10..
I know VR is more than just games, but ads in games aren't new. I remember playing some Tom Clancy Spec Ops thingamajig, and as I walked through a Vegas convention hall, what did I see but Comcast banners strewn about. If I recall, those types of ads are even pulled from the internet live, they aren't pre-built.
VR ads, if unobtrusive, shouldn't change the experience at all. If you're walking down a street, you might expect to see store fronts or billboards. If those expected objects have familiar brands, does that change the experience?
Of course, obtrusive ads need to die a quick, yet agonizing death. If my echo so much as whispers an ad without anyone activating it, I will smash it with a sledge hammer, burn the pieces to ash, and scatter them to the four winds. I'll make the wife cancel Prime too, since Amazon already has my money for the echoes.
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