The art of the ad

I've spoken before about PVRs spelling not the end of ads but the end of ads as an interruptive format - people who can skip thirty seconds of shilling tend to do so, and in any case those without the technology simply leave the room, skip the channel or make a cup of tea. I'm fascinated therefore to see Coke take a leaf out of the Sony  Bravia book with ads that are simply art (YouTube). This is a vast, ambitious and beautiful ad directed (Dexigner) by Manhattan animation studio PSYOP and it's already been viewed a few thousand times on YouTube (a fair few of those times by me). Now, as Umair recently pointed out, YouTube is capturing little or no value from things like Coke's ad sitting on its servers. Which is I guess a shame for YouTube. But it's great news for Coke, and part of a growing theme - that ads cannot rely on simply interrupting an audience's attention, but can capture the audience's imagination with something they genuinely want to watch.