Business Ideas Haystack

Ads Paid Per Viewer (APPV)

Television networks still won't admit it, but advertising on TV is losing value and becoming overpriced.

First, I always thought it hokey that they set their ad rates during sweeps periods. You mean you want to charge me for viewers you garnered in May when you aired season finales, series finales, and blockbuster movies and specials; yet the next two months you're airing junk that results in the lowest viewership of the year? I suppose I'm naive that way, but it seems to lack common sense.

Second, advertising was always hit-and-miss with the mute button, channel-surfers, kitchen-snack-makers and bathroom-breakers. Now there's DVR (digital video recorders) technology that enables me to skip ads entirely.

I read a book on buzz marketing that estimated television ad production to be about $16 per viewer! Yes the ad rates are advertised at only about 3/10th of a penny per viewer, but once you subtract all the commercials not seen due to the previous examples and the cost of producing the ads, the cost is probably mucho higher!

So my idea is to take ads directly to viewers, one-on-one, in a manner that pays them directly and ensures the viewer pays attention to the ad.

The way my idea works is this: 30-second ads are loaded up onto a tablet-PC laptop in the form of .mpg or .avi files. I take that laptop out to the local park or beer festival (wherever there's lots of people). I have a big sandwich board sign that advertises 'Watch Ads for $ Now'.

People sign a simple 1-page contract that has them provide their name, address, and phone number (verifiable by ID), and that they agree to pay attention to two 30-second ads you will show on your laptop, and they earn $5 for their minute.

If you have enough ads, you can even let them choose their ads (would you like Coke or a furniture store?) You play them for one person at a time, and watch their eyes. If they look away for more than 2 seconds in the 60 second period, you have to restart or not pay them if they can't do it.

You then pay them $5, then do the next person. Groups of friends would be great for this, because everyone's going to at least hear the ads playing while they wait, so ad exposure is actually greater than the 1 person being paid to watch.

You then turn in those contracts to prove you played the ad for people, and each contract pays you $2.50 per 30-second ad ($5 per person ads are played to).

I see this as a method to generate advertising buzz because people are not used to being paid directly for watching advertising. Most people would sit for 60 seconds to earn $5! That's a rate of $300 per hour! You could further stipulate that the same person could only watch 1 set of ads each hour, so you don't have some cheesehead bleeding you dry.

Advertisers would only have to pay $5 per 30-second ad, much cheaper than actual costs for television advertising, and better spending because they know the ad is being seen and who is seeing it. An advertiser could even specify 'show this only to middle-aged Hispanic women' or whatnot is their target demographic.

Finally, a choice of advertisers would be the deal sealer, because people would likely choose ads of products they are likely shopping for at that time, so the ad has better chances of resulting in sales.

Plus, it would be pretty cool to walk around and show ads from a laptop slung around your neck for 10 or 20 hours a week and get paid better than most 40-hour jobs.

Any ideas on the price point of this from advertisers?

posted by Ideas2NoEnd @ 1:05 PM