Some ads are no fun for everyone

Recently I got tired of watching the same movies over and over on Netflix Instant or Flixter or whatever they’re calling it these days. I switched over to Hulu primarily because they get new content on a regular basis. So far Hulu is great.

What is not great is the way Hulu does ads.

Having a web-based television platform allows for a lot of flexibility compared to what’s possible with cable. This extends to the ways you do advertising—the web is obviously a much more versatile medium. So far though, Hulu hasn’t really taken advantage. They outline their approach to the Hulu Ad Experience in a post on their blog.

Here are the biggest issues with the way Hulu does ads as well as some ideas to fix them:

1. The overall pool of available ads is really small: Sure, it’s nice to pick which ads you like (or are willing to tolerate), but it doesn’t do much good when there aren’t that many options to begin with. You end up seeing the same ads over and over and over. Getting to choose between three ads for the Prius C isn’t really choice. Actually, considering how bad the Prius C campaign is, it’s like picking which method of torture you want to subject yourself to. There has to be a simple way to get better ads: Let viewers create their own, show funny ads from other countries, show ads for products featured in the shows, something, anything.

2. The process of “selecting ads” is annoying: If you hook up your computer to your tv, every time Hulu asks you to select which ad you want to watch, you need to go back to your computer to make the selection. This is particularly annoying because I don’t have a preference between the options 99 percent of the time (see point one). If you don’t make a selection, you have to wait 15 seconds for Hulu to select an ad for you. Worse than watching bad ads is waiting to watch bad ads. It would be a lot easier if the ‘ad selection’ process was removed from the viewing flow. This way, there’s one place to tinker with your ad settings and it doesn’t get between you and what you want to watch.

3. Ad Swap doesn’t help: Late last year Hulu released Ad Swap which basically allows you to stop watching a given ad and switch to one that is “more relevant.” Who is going to watch an ad, realize they don’t like it, and then switch to another full ad? It seems a lot more plausible to just wait out the rest of the ad you’re already watching. Again, if you remove ‘ad selection’ from the viewing flow, this becomes a non-issue.

4. The Paradox of Choice: The research says users want choice. This is nothing new. Users always want choice. This is basically a non-finding. When people fill out surveys they always imagine that if they could customize their experience, they would enjoy the result. Sounds simple enough. The problem is, most people have no idea what they want, especially when it comes to trivial stuff like ads — things they don’t spend too much time thinking about, and would probably prefer to live without.

This is also troublesome for advertisers. When you pick the “ad experience” you want, you’re making the decision based on knowing the brand, the title of the ad and a small static image. Considering people barely have any information at this point, it’s basically a brand decision. Which brand’s ad do you want to see? You have no idea which ads are going to be good or funny or interesting. Isn’t the point of ads to influence peoples’ perception of brands and products? It’s hard to imagine people are going to change how they see your brand if they aren’t even electing to watch your ads. And considering it’s practically impossible to know a good ad before you see one, who can blame them?

California Island. If only.

As far as state names go, California is the black sheep of America.

Rather than some stale, obligatory honor to a founding father, a lazy attempt to replicate somewhere in England or a halfhearted remembrance of a decimated Indian nation, “California” is a dream. It represents not what was found or what died here, but what is possible here.

That’s what Spanish author Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo was thinking when he coined the word in his novel, The Exploits of Esplandian (1510). In it he describes an island that lies “very close to a side of the Earthly Paradise,” upon which live a race of mighty Amazon warrior women who ride griffins and wield axes made of gold. Their queen? Just some bad-ass chick named Califia.

Early female biker gangs aside, Rodriguez’s take on California is perfect for the American West. It symbolizes an untamed and bountiful land, a place of wildness and potential, adventure and opportunity — all popular connotations of California’s past, present and (hopefully) future.

The surprising thing is, the name actually delivers what it promises. From palm trees to pot leaves, boomtowns to Tinseltown, where the physical beauty of its celebrities is rivaled only by that of its natural landmarks, the state is often regarded as 160,000 square miles of utopia (not counting Bakersfield). It has every climate except tropical rainforest and arctic tundra. It contains one of the most diverse gathering of cultures in a country made out of other cultures, and represents opinions of every shade on the political spectrum. It has some of the best universities in the world and contains both Silicon Valley and Hollywood, the international meccas of technology and entertainment, respectively. Business isn’t bad here either. If it was its own country, California would have the eighth largest economy in the world. Also, Tupac said it knows how to party.

Obviously California is far from perfect, what with the rampant earthquakes, debt, unemployment and botched plastic surgeries. I mean, I almost got robbed while writing this. Still, no one expects it to actually be flawless, or cheap, or even sustainable. That’s just what you have to get used to when everyone wants to live here.

Of course, if you don’t think California measures up to its promise, you can always go back to Kansas. Just don’t expect anyone to write an awesome rap song about it.

Stuck in a naming rut? Perfect timing.

We spend the majority of our waking hours naming things, so we thought it would be nice to reach out and help those of you in naming need. We can’t work with everyone who comes our way, but we wanted to open up a little time to help people in need of naming assistance who might not have the funds for a full blown project. Thus: Office Hours.

We’ll be opening our office to those of you who are local enough to make the trip, so we can talk the old fashioned way: in person. We’ll help you understand which considerations are important enough to worry about, and which ones are holding you back. No, we won’t name your company for free. Or write the copy for your new website. But if all goes as planned, we’ll be able to help you get a better night’s sleep.

If you want to stop by, drop us a line at hi[at]ahundredmonkeys[dot]com, and we’ll set something up. Don’t be shy.

Something tells me this is not going to end well.

Love at first sight can be a pretty thrilling experience. One moment you’re locking eyes while feeling for ripe fruit at the supermarket, and the next you’re cuddling together in the checkout line planning your honeymoon.

Yet for all its romance and adventure, love at first sight is also a dangerous affair. After all, who is this person? What if they never actually liked fruit and were only trying to get in your pants? Or what if they’re hiding something really creepy, like a houseful of hamsters and an addiction to PCP? Worse, what happens when you invest your heart in this stranger … and it all ends in disaster?

Falling in love with a name carries many of the same hazards as dating, though it’s mostly because people become fixated on a single choice. Let’s face it, there’s a decent chance your seemingly “perfect” name is already taken. And while falling head over heels for a name that turns out to be attached to someone else is pretty bad, finding yourself on the wrong end of a trademark infringement lawsuit is a whole lot worse.

That doesn’t mean you can’t, nor shouldn’t, fall in love with a name. It just means you should temper your expectations before you let yourself fall in headfirst. Keep some options on the table until you know what’s taken and what’s not.

Heartbroken that your love is attached to another? Take a look around you. There are plenty of other available options out there waiting for a good partner, and having more choices only allows you to make better decisions.

We can’t choose the people or names we immediately fall in love with. But we can choose to put in the work to find the ones that will make us happy and not get us sued. What more could you ask from a relationship than that?

Jill and Burt Kohler were facing a scary legal battle at the end of 2011 for using the name Kohler Academy. They decided the best move forward would be to get some professional help in order to start 2012 on solid ground. We guided them through our naming process until we had a name that captured the spirit of the school. Then we partnered with Mark Pernice of Matic to develop a brand around the name we landed on: Penrose Academy. You can read the whole story here.

3...2...1...

We had a hunch the final frontier was a place we wanted to check out. Thanks to the sharp skills of Curtis Jinkins, now we build rockets in more colors than NASA.

It’s hard to give up a name with that kind of equity. Unless, of course, you’re being sued for trademark infringement by a plumbing outfit that happens to be one of the largest private companies in the US of A.

Even though they knew they could win, the Kohlers were too busy running a school to get tangled up in a lawsuit.** They figured it would make more sense to pour the time and energy back into the brand. So they brought us on board to help develop a new name and visual identity. After everything we had learned, we had to see this place for ourselves. So we hopped on the next flight to Arizona.

STRATEGY

Have you ever noticed that there are a ton of beauty salons? Think of something only mildly beautiful and chances are there are already half a dozen salons with that name. Given the Kohlers’ recent trademark trauma we knew we had to travel deep into uncharted territory to rebuild on solid ground. After spending some time at Kohler Academy, we understood that the power of what they do goes far beyond beauty.

The professional palettes of the beauty industry.

APPROACH

We knew we needed a name to evoke a serious and sophisticated academic environment to make students and parents alike feel proud. A name to capture the inspiration that comes before the creation. Penrose fit the bill. Equal parts intellect and aestheticism, Penrose brings to mind a Victorian sense of learned beauty. With the name in place, we worked with Mark Pernice of Matic in NYC to develop a visual identity that gives Penrose the bold precision of the artist’s hand at work behind the curtain.

Visual identity by Mark Pernice of Matic

**We guarantee that working with us is more entertaining than a court room drama.