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I get the feeling that big advertising still believes that people are sheep. Well, this old school notion is going to bite them in the ass.

There is an unwritten social contract in advertising where I give the advertiser a piece of my time in exchange for something. The more valuable that something, the more effective the advertising. For example, I watch a commercial in exchange for relatively cheap television. It used to be free, and still should be, but that’s another discussion.

Most consumers don’t really think about the value of their time, but sometimes it takes being part of a captive audience to hammer it home.

I went to see the new Bond flick, Casino Royale, last night with my buddy Mike. Mike and I went to college together and we both graduated with an advertising degree, so we often have heated conversations about branding and messaging where other guys would talk about sports. As soon as the lights went down and the curtains opened, Mike tore into is rant about movie theaters. I actually quite enjoy the rant because he has a very good point and we take every opportunity to vocalize it and spread the outrage.

Why are there commercials in the movie theatre?

I have paid my money. I paid it to see the movie. Why should I be forced to watch commercials?

Advertising in theatres is the big screen equivalent of a Jehovah’s Witnesses at my door except that at home, I’m not forced to answer the door.
Advertisers must be paying a pretty penny for my captive eyeballs. Where’s my payback? The ticket prices aren’t any cheaper. The movie experience isn’t any better.

To add insult to injury, most of the ads are the same exact ones that are on television. If you are going to force me to watch your ads, at least spend the money to show me that you made an effort to enhance my experience.

It is ill-conceived ideas like these that create an us-and-them attitude between consumers and brands. There is a growing disconnect and experiences like this add fuel to the fire. Technology is making it easier and easier to consume media without having to endure advertising so advertisers are scrambling to find other ways reach us. The problem is that instead of taking this as an opportunity to learn new ways to connect to consumers, advertisers are, for the most part, just applying old out-dated concepts in new ways. The result? They piss us off more and more.

How can they fix this? Either find new ways to talk to consumers (branded utility, for example) or go back to the basics and remember that advertising can be an art form if done right. Recently a colleague sent me a link to an ad on YouTube. It was an ad in the new Guiness campaign. Brilliant! Simple idea, well executed…and I went out of my way to specifically watch that ad. Now I’m blogging about it.

Maybe there is a lesson here for old-school advertising. Of course the only way they would listen is if we ram it down their throat…through their pocketbook.

We’ve been having a lively debate about trying to define Branded Applications over here at Teknision. From one end we look at it from a development viewpoint and debate the differences between Rich Internet Applications and what we consider Branded Applications. From the other end, we look at potential clients and try to show how building branded applications instead of the typical presentation based web sites creates a stronger bond between the audience and the brand. It got me to thinking about Branded Applications, or branded utility as a movement that is part of a bigger change in consumer attitudes.

I think that the rise in of Branded Applications is part of a trend towards personalizing experiences. Take the popularity of shows such as Lost. I find myself constantly complaining that it is nothing more than a big drawn out tease, but I keep watching. The reason why I keep watching is that it is not simple entertainment, it makes me think. Lost has no easy answers and leaves a lot up in the air without even a hint as to when mysteries will be revealed. Lost forces me to build my own theories about the storyline. In doing so, I have an intensely personal experience of Lost. In fact, my experience with Lost is completely different than anyone else’s. I have personalized a TV show.

When people who watch Lost get together, they share their theories. In essence, they share their experience with Lost. This conversation adds to our individual experiences. Image being able to do this with a brand? In order to get this level of internalization, a brand has to do more than entertain. A brand has to make itself meaningful to a person. I believe this is where where Branded Applications excel. By providing a valuable service and entertainment at the same time, the user builds a personal relationship with the application.

So what has this got to do with Bittorrent?

According to TorrentFreak, Lost is the most downloaded TV show on Bittorrent. An average episode is downloaded over 500,000 times. Thats’ 5% of all Lost viewers!

1 in every 20 viewer downloaded the show and joins the Lost experience without a single commercial interruption.

How many more do the same with a Tivo or DVR or…. gasp!… a VCR?

The number 2 and number 3 most downloaded shows are Prison Break (> 320,000 downloads) and Heroes (> 190,000 downloads). What do all these shows have in common? They are all shows that demand viewers build their own relationship with the story.

People want to have personal relationships with their entertainment. Branded Applications mirror this online. I think this is only the beginning of a bigger trend.