At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity today, Microsoft introduced a new kind of Kinect-powered advertising to the marketing world. “NUads,” short for natural user-interface ads, allow consumers to yell and/or wave at advertisements and affect what they do.
In the brave new world of NUads, when you see a commercial for a particularly fly pair of sneakers, you can be like, “Damn, those kicks are hyper-double radical to the max!” and you’ll say, “Xbox Tweet!” and all your twitter followers will know that you think the hypothetical tennis shoes are the bomb. Or even the bomb-diggity!
“Simply put, NUads break down the barriers between consumers and content on the TV screen. NUads make traditional linear content— like a 30 second TV spot— irresistibly interactive,” Microsoft advertising GM Mark Kroese said in a blog post.
Microsoft showed off five NUad scenarios, but the possibilities are endless. Here’s a list of what they demoed:
1. When a user says “Xbox tweet,” he or she can immediately tweet something about the brand.
2. Saying “Xbox More” lets users request additional information or a coupon to be emailed to them.
3. Saying “Xbox Near Me” pulls up a Bing map that locates the nearest retailer, and sends the user a text message with the location.
4. Saying “Xbox Schedule” sends the user a calender reminder about an upcoming show.
5. When prompted to vote at the end of an ad, the user can wave his or her hand to give feedback.
Here, check out the video yourself:
Is that irresistibly interactive or what? Sadly, if you yell “OH MY GOD, SHUT UP!” at annoying advertisments, it won’t affect anything, but try it anyway; it can’t hurt.
The first NUads are expected to roll out in spring 2012.
