Microsoft’s “NUads” will soon be released to the public.
“NUads,” a type of interactive Kinect commercial which encourages you to engage in marketing via your console, have been in the pipeline for a while. Marketing types worldwide will be pleased to hear that this week, having fine-tuned these hand-wavy 30 second commercial spots and gained a few advertisers, Microsoft has announced that it intends to launch the NUads on Xbox this fall.
Microsoft Advertising released this video, which shows NUads from Unilever and Toyota in action, as part of its announcement. We see commercials asking viewers questions which they then respond to by hovering their cursors over an answer. An old man eats some curtains made of pizza for reasons best known to the Toyota advert within which he appears to reside. No ground shakes.
Marketing managers sound predictably pleased about the advent of the NUad. Those marketers include Ross Honey, the general manager of Xbox Live Entertainment and advertising. “NUads marks the beginning of a new era for TV advertising. It delivers the one thing traditional TV advertising is missing – engagement,” said Honey. “We developed NUads to breathe new life into the standard 30-second spot. With NUads, brands can get real-time feedback from audiences, making TV advertising actionable for the first time.”
There’s no word yet on whether or not these interactive ads will appear during entertainment app ad breaks, or even if they’ll appear outside of the U.S. While Microsoft says that poll-style NUads will be the only ones floating around Xboxes initially, there are various easily-imaginable ways in which the ads could change in the future (they might start offering you prizes for waving your hands at them, for example).
That’s about all there is for now, but expect to hear more once the NUads start popping up on homescreens. Could you be able to skip an ad in exchange for Tweeting its contents? Could a careless arm wave end up in you alerting all of your Facebook contacts to how much you totally love watching septuagenarians eat window-mounted pizza? Horror, horror!
Source: Engadget
