Ads You'll Want to Watch

Can something be both inevitable and revolutionary?

The Times looks at the phenomenon of websites where advertising is the attraction -- places like Very Funny Ads and the not-yet-launched Didja.com and Honeyshed.com.

"Surprisingly, the idea of all ads, all the time, is gaining some favor," concludes the Times.

What's so surprising about it? In fact, I'd bet these sites are the vanguard of a much larger trend: the shift from advertising-as-unwanted-parasite to advertising-as-welcome-distraction.

Until now, ads have mostly come packaged with entertainment or information content—the Trojan Horse model. Tolerating the invasion of advertisers into our personal time was the price we, as consumers, had to pay. But now, we've figured out ways to enjoy a lot of our content without ads, whether it's DVRs or ad-blocking browser software.

At the same time, however, we've developed an appetite for a certain form of content that didn't really exist before the Internet Age—little nuggets that only take a minute or so to enjoy, and that we primarily consume from our desks at work rather than in our living rooms. That's what we're looking for when we browse blogs or YouTube in the middle of the day—something to divert us for a couple minutes between tasks.

Thirty-second spots were practically invented to fill that need. A trip to Very Funny Ads is like a trip to YouTube, only the production values are better. (And the clips are dirtier—virtually all of the "most-watched" spots are sexual in nature.) It's a true win-win: Advertisers give us tiny little films to laugh at; we give them willing access to our brains.

The only catch is that being entertaining doesn't ensure an ad will be effective. Of the 15 or so clips I watched on Very Funny Ads, the only ones whose sponsors I can remember were the Ikea spots. This one was my favorite: