I might be a little behind the times talking about commercials, but, frankly... I don't give a shit. I want to talk about this really cool commercial that EA Sports did (some might say it's not a commercial, but it is). Long story short, they made a response to a youtube post about a glitch in one of there new games (Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08). Now, I'm not sure if the original poster (Levinator25) is real or not, but it really doesn't matter, and here's why.
Electronic Arts gets it. In a world with TiVo, video on demand, the Internets, and people pirating shows and cutting out the mostly horrible commercials. EA has found a way for them not only to get there message out but to make themselves look really fucking cool, savvy, and most importantly, connected to their user base. That's not an easy accomplishment in a video that's all of a minute and half long. But they pulled it off.
Now, I've been known to pick up a sports game ever once in awhile but mainly I stick to the FPS', platformers, and RPG's. But EA got me this time. I hate watching golf, don't know how to play it in real life, but have always liked dabbling in the video game versions at my friends house. Next time I'm looking for a golf game though I won't need to figure out which one I want (not that there's a lot of them). See, instead of ignoring there fan's videos, or even worse, demanding that they be taking down. They crafted a well laid out and executed response to a question that was never asked, that intern makes me want to go buy the game. That doesn't happen very often with me. Actually almost never.
Which brings me to my whole point. It's not that we, as consumers, don't want to watch commercials and see adds. It's actually the exact opposite. We want to see great commercials and ads. The more intriguing, funny, well written, and dare I say it... cooler the ad is, the more likely we are to pay attention and buy said product. I mean, who doesn't remember the Budweiser frogs or the great ESPN commercials? The fact of the matter is that the companies that are going to be on top in the next 10-20 years are going to be the ones that can make us want to view there ads. The more they fight it, the farther they'll fall behind.