‘Pause Ads’ Creep Onto Hulu, Peacock and Max as Streamers Seek New Revenue::Big streaming services like Hulu, Max and Peacock are relying more heavily on ‘pause ads’ that show up when a user halts a binge session
Hoist the anchors, mateys!
That seems like one of the less intrusive ways to fit ads in anyway, sure, try to sell diabetes supplies to my dog while I’m taking a shit, see if I care.
Except when I’m pausing to read something in the background of the scene and find Easter eggs. Fuck peacock for doing that.
Being in advertising “r&d” for these companies must be the easiest job in the world. All you have to do is insert ads into every possible slot (oftentimes just following another example), wait for consumers to roll over and pay for it, then do it again in six months. Freest money ever since consumers will take every blow they’re dealt and just keep paying for it no matter how bad the product becomes. Some day they’ll perfect the art and blast ads in the middle of the screen with the actual show in the top letterbox— reserving the bottom letterbox for buy it now buttons— and they’ll get fired like everyone else. But until then, easiest paycheck in the world
Next marketing meeting … get’s interrupted with five unskipable commercials
Yup. Currently work at an ad tech company and we just pushed a new ad surface and the executives freaking loved it. It adds on additional revenue without putting any of the current revenue at risk. Internally, the narrative was super positive while externally it was “Well, that’s kind of annoying”.
So long as user engagement doesn’t totally tank, they see it as a complete win.
Pause ads seem much less annoying than regular ads so sure, do that, don’t care when the show is paused
I was subscribed to paramount+ for Star Trek, and occasionally I’d pause to catch Easter eggs or read something on the screen, get a better look at a ship, etc - but all I could see was a shirtless man selling me old spice. It was actually really frustrating.
They could have definitely implemented it better. What comes to my mind is showing the ad only when the shiw is stopped and mouse was inactive for 5 seconds. This way, you could just jiggle your mouse a little when trying to catch those easter eggs. Not ideal, but much better than regular ads IMO.
They seem less annoying now. Just wait until you have pause ads coupled with regular ads!
That reminds me of that one episode of black mirror where he can’t turn away from the ad: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
They can pause dez nutz!
