David Kiefaber’s post on a new GoPro ad touches on an interesting point regarding the advertising of video cameras—the advertisement, in addition to simply raising awareness of the product and trying to keep it in the customer’s evoked set, demonstrates the product. The ad itself shows the quality of the camera—its high definition, stability, wide-angle, light weight, small size, durability—in other words, its suitability for the job is a direct reflection of the quality of the advertisement—it’s up to the consumer to decide if it’s up to par.

On the internet, more than anywhere, it is important for advertisements to be stunning, memorable and worth watching in and of themselves. This is for two reasons: firstly, there are numerous programs—like Adblock for Firefox—which enable users to block almost all forms of advertising from their internet browsing, including popups, YouTube advertisements. The web is not a medium where you can pay a fee for the attention of thousands of people for the duration of your ad, as with cable TV. Secondly, instead of choosing from amongst the city’s 10 papers or the 100 channels available on TV. There are millions upon millions of websites. The internet does have great possibilities for advertising by way of viral videos. Viral videos are characterized by voluntary sharing by the public. According to YouTube statistics of the GoPro ad it has been watched over 6,000,000 times—by people who were intrigued enough that they watched of their own volition, as opposed to people tolerating it as background noise. While the internet has introduced a number of advertising methods that are unsurpassed in their obnoxiousness (pop up ads come to mind), it has also brought the most consumer-friendly form of advertising, in which the advertisement’s success depends more than ever on its ability to captivate consumers.