July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google used a primetime advertising slot during Grammy Awards last night to show off the popular Nexus 4 smartphone and many uses of Google Now, its Siri competitor.

The Nexus 4 is one of the hottest Android phones on the market due to solid feature set and its relatively cheap off-contract pricing. It was originally plagued with supply issues, but Google and manufacturer LG have mostly fixed those issues and it can be purchased in the Google Play store for $300.

While the Nexus 4′s placement in the commercial was key, the real star might have been Google Now. Google clearly wants people to see what its competitor to Apple’s Siri can do. In the commercial, we see many uses for Google Now: a mother gets weather updates, two girls are helped with translations, a couple finds a place to eat, and a father looks over his busy calendar.

Check out the video above to see the full ad and let us know what you think in the comments.

What kind of commercial do you run if you’re constantly locked up in legal battles with your major competitor? If you’re Samsung, you fork over a dumpster full of cash and avoid alluding to Apple devices like you’ve done in the past.

The 120-second commercial was intended to have its global premiere during the fourth quarter of this year’s Super Bowl. However, Samsung decided to post the entire video on YouTube earlier today.

Just like we saw in earlier teaser videos, the commercial features celebrity funny men Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen being interviewed by Bob Odenkirk about doing a “Next Big Thing” endorsement ad for Samsung. NBA star athlete Lebron James makes a cameo on a tablet at the end, but not before lots of banter and ridiculous ideas for what to do in the commercial.

In addition to the estimated $15 million cost of airing the ad during the big game, Samsung also had to pay four celebrities and the commercial’s director, Jon Favreau (of Iron Man 1 & 2 fame). That’s a ton of cash for a commercial that, while funny, isn’t nearly as piercing as its ads teasing Apple about its customers being clueless old people.

We’ve embedded the video above. Let us know your thoughts on it in the comment section below.

The Super Bowl is the most watched event in the nation. And thanks to the almighty power of the blessed Internet, this year’s gameday is easier to follow and participate in than ever before.

We’ve devised a comprehensive gameday strategy for football fans and all their friends and family members.

1) Watching the big game online

Desktop: If you can’t get to a television screen, CBS Sports is doing you a solid by streaming the entire broadcast on its website for free. Pregame programming begins at 8 a.m. PT (11 a.m. ET), with the game itself kicking off at 3:30 p.m. PT (6:30 p.m. ET). The CBS Sports website may actually provide a better experience than the traditional TV screen, as you can view the game from many different angles, check out a livestream of social activity, and play with several interactive features. But if, for whatever reason, you’re not a fan of CBS, then head over to the official NFL Network website to catch a free livestream of the game. If you live outside the country, though, you’ll be forced to purchase an NFL Game Pass to watch the Super Bowl.

Mobile: Can’t get to a television or desktop computer? If you’re Verizon customer, don’t worry. The wireless carrier/FiOS broadband Internet company is providing a Super Bowl livestream via its free NFL apps for iOS and Android to anyone with an NFL Mobile subscription ($5/mo.).

2) Watching the commercials online

You have a few options for keeping track of all the seemingly memorable Super Bowl commercials online, with many shortened or rejected versions of them already available for viewing online. I prefer to use the Hulu AdZone to watch the commercials, but YouTube’s AdBlitz is also a good option. Either way, watching the commercials online means you can skip the annual offering from GoDaddy, which is usually tasteless and degrading to women.

3) Second screen apps & services

Team Apps: Because most of you will be constantly glancing at your smartphone or tablet throughout the game anyway, this year’s Super Bowl comes with a handful of official mobile apps intended to enhance the viewing experience. Both the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers have applications available on iOS, Android, and BlackBerry that will give you game news, short replay videos, photo galleries, player interviews, statistics, and other goodies.

Super Bowl event app: This year the NFL is providing those attending the game with a mobile app to make the most of their undoubtedly expensive experience. It has a map feature showing nearby restaurants, music, ticketing information, etc. And if it’s anything like the 2012 version, it will include some useful features for people who aren’t at the game too.

4) What to watch at halftime: Beyoncé or puppies?

Musical Performance: This year, CBS Sports will be providing a livestream of the Super Bowl’s halftime show, something that wasn’t available to online viewers in the past. That means you now have the option of watching Beyoncé try to entertain rambunctious football fans. If that doesn’t appeal to you, here’s another option:

Puppy Bowl: I’m not sure who at cable network Animal Planet was responsible for making an entire halftime show devoted to puppies playing with balls in an adorable dog-sized football field. But it’s back again this year, and with a new partnership that will vastly improve your viewing experience. Animal Planet has teamed up with Yahoo’s IntoNow application to give you an easy way to share and caption a large volume of adorable puppy screenshots via its CapIt feature (a meme generator). You may remember that I thoroughly praised IntoNow for its ability to make the 2012 presidential debates far more enjoyable. This will be more of the same, except this time you’ll actually stand a chance of getting everyone in the room to agree that your tweets are indeed awesome. For now, check out some game predictions using puppies, courtesy of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon:

5) Gameday Grub ideas

Foodily: Sure, you can definitely get away with ordering a few extra-large pizzas and opening a bag of chips, but why not go all out? I did a quick scan of some of the food startup blogs and was shocked to find that many of them had a pretty meager selection of Super Bowl food posts. Foodily, however, comes through, offering up not one, but three different posts that cover snacks, cocktails, and overall food. If you don’t like any of those selections, you can always search the site for more.

Yummly and Allrecipe: If you want a good recipe for regular game snack food, Allrecipe has collected a handy list of the most searched-for Super Bowl food. And if you have no idea what constitutes Super Bowl food or what the average football fan wants to eat, check out Yummly’s very extensive post on the subject using data from its own site.

Foodie iPad app: If you’re looking for a more directed crop of recipes, Glam Media’s cooking/food site Foodie has released a Foodie Recipes iPad app that highlights 40 game-day suggestions.

Seamless & GrubHub: If you hate cooking, or even leaving the confines of your house to pick up food for your guests, you can always use delivery services like Seamless or GrubHub to order from a ton of local restaurants.

6) Other miscellaneous Super Bowl-related apps, services, and content

Madden NFL 13: The EA Football game franchise is featuring a Ray Lewis pre-Super Bowl speech video on YouTube that’s available to watch now.

Xbox Live’s Sports Hub: A collection of Super Bowl-related content from a variety of Xbox media partners, including Hulu, Maxim, iHeartRadio, CrunchyRoll, and DailyMotion.

StatMilk: StatMilk has put together an interactive web infographic that compares statistical data of the Ravens and the 49ers. It’s actually pretty cool if you’re super into sports stats.

Swipper Bowl: Social startup Swipp has created a Swipper Bowl app that helps frame the discussion sports fans will likely be having via social media during the big game. To use it, you’ll need to connect with Facebook.

Football Party Game App: This is an iPad app/web app that lets you and a group of friends (wherever you are) to play a game of trivia during the Super Bowl. I’m not a fan of “pub quizzes” or trivia nights, but I have an exhausting list of friends who love it. It will, however, set you back $5.

TOK.tv iOS app: This app lets you chat with four other friends not in your general vicinity during the big game. It’s basically a Google Hangout that’s devoted to live sporting events. The TOK.tv iPad  app is free and available in the iTunes store.

7) Avoiding the heck out of the actual Super Bowl

Hey sports haters and hermits, did you think we’d forget about you? Nope. Here are a few cool things you may want to know going into Super Bowl Sunday weekend (the thing that will render your Twitter feeds useless for much of Sunday evening).

Netflix Free weekend: Did you know that Netflix is letting anyone with an Xbox 360 + Xbox Live membership access its vast library of streaming videos for the whole weekend? If you didn’t, and you don’t already subscribe to Netflix, you now can catch up on old episodes of Star Trek, classic Disney cartoons, and marathon through the first few seasons of Vampire Diaries. Hulu Plus is also enabling free access to its Xbox Live app for the weekend.

House of Cards: In addition to the Xbox Live weekend promo, Netflix is also debuting its first super huge original TV show, House of Cards, which is said to be on par with the quality of HBO’s original programming. The good thing about Netflix, as opposed to the cable networks, is that you won’t have to wait 13 weeks to finish the first season. Netflix is releasing the whole thing today.

HBO Go: Again, the Super Bowl is so powerful that HBO made the decision to release the latest episode of its hit series Girls one day early (Saturday, Feb. 2). I can’t imagine that anyone who’s a die-hard Lena Dunham fan would be upset about missing the Super Bowl, but regardless, we all benefit.

Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comment section, and we’ll be sure to add it.

The biggest problem I have with traditional television advertising is how absolutely obnoxious and out of touch its gotten in terms of targeting. For most people this is simply and annoyance, but for Gracenote it’s a business opportunity.

The company, which is perhaps best known for identifying music information in third-party services (like Fuzz), is rolling out a new service that aims to customize TV commercials based on each individual’s viewing habits. Essentially, Gracenote will partner with manufacturers of Smart TVs and set-top boxes to provide a “commercial replacement” system, which will basically swap out the predetermined commercials with those chosen by Gracenote.

My guess is that the commercials will behave much like they do on Hulu, with advertising targeted toward my specific demographic. (I rarely see makeup commercials, but I sit through tons of smartphone and tablet video ads.) Gracenote told TechCrunch that revenue split from the commercials is still being determined, and that it’s likely to prove disruptive to the $70 billion TV advertising industry. I’m curious as to how traditional cable and satellite TV operators respond to such technology. The smart move would be to either engineer similar smart-commercial ad tech, or partner with Gracenote directly. But history has shown us that these “disruptive technologies” usually end up in the court room before they have a chance to revamp the industry.

Gracenote plans to show off a demo of the new customized commercial service at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, and have it ready to launch by the end of 2013.

Broken TV image via forest badger/Shutterstock

While Apple finally put its iPad mini commercial out for public consumption over the weekend, some fans of Microsoft’s new line of tablets have already started to produce spoofs.

The video above parody’s the Apple commercial that starts our with someone playing a piano via Garage Band. However, the iPad mini is replaced with a Surface tablet, which starts blaring some upbeat music. It then starts zipping around the screen, breaks the iPad’s screen as well as the mechanical hand that was playing the piano. The video ends with a warning sign that reads “Caution: Hot Surface, Do Not Touch,”

The video, created by Seattle-based creative firm Cinesaurus, is better than any of the commercials we’ve seen from Microsoft thus far.

Just to be certain, we’ve contacted the creative team to find out if Microsoft hired them. Either way, the video (embedded above) is worth checking out. Let us know what you think in the comment section below.

Apple is showing off its latest product, the iPad mini, within a new commercial that features it side by side with the regular iPad. Both screens are running Garageband with a Piano on their screen, as you can see in the video above.

Rather than hearing the ominous product spokesman voice, Apple has chosen to play a duet between the devices. It’s a subtle way of pointing out that the iPad mini’s biggest selling point is its size, which anyone with a pair of eyeballs can see.

This is indeed the same commercial that ran during Apple’s Media event weeks ago where it initially debuted the device.

Broadcast TV network Fox is asking U.S. courts to block certain functionality from satellite television service Dish Network’s Hopper DVR box, which allows Dish subscribers to automatically skip commercial interruptions with a single button.

Fox, along with NBCUniversal and CBS, initially filed a lawsuit against Dish back in May. The broadcast TV companies alleged that Dish violated content licensing agreements by allowing its customers to block out advertising, which is their primary source of revenue, and by automatically recording all prime-time programs from the major networks.

Reuters is reporting that Fox is now asking the courts to forbid Dish from offering these two functions on its Hopper box until a verdict is reached from the forthcoming trial. The rationale behind Fox’s request is that the company will lose quite a bit of money in the months leading up to said trial.

Unless Fox can prove that it’s losing money, I don’t see the court granting its request. Advertisers typically pay TV networks upfront to air their commercials based on projected audience viewing totals for each time slot. Since Fox isn’t about to pitch its advertisers with lower projected audiences, I doubt it’ll be able to easily prove that Dish’s commerical-skipping Hopper box is hurting its profits in the short-term.

As for the automatically recording prime time programming, I also think Fox will have a hard time proving that Dish is violating content licensing — in part due to Barry Diller-run Aereo TV’s recent legal win against the networks.

Kangaroo photo via Dave Mitchell/Shutterstock;

Apple decided to stop running its latest batch of mildly humorous television commercials today, barely a week after their debut.

Aside from painting the over-40 crowd of computer owners as completely inept, the new set of  TV spots attempted to highlight the usefulness of its Apple Store Genius Bar employees by demonstrating their vast knowledge of Apple products as well as the benefits of using them. That’s much different from the company’s typical outlook on advertisements, which allows the products to sell themselves by simply showing them off.

The three Genius commercials first appeared on television during the Olympics, and their quick demise was all part of the plan, according to Apple’s advertising agency TBWA/Media/Arts.

“The ads were intended only for a ‘first run’ during the Olympics, which meant just the first weekend of the Games,” a TBWA representative told Business Insider.

I’m not sure if that’s entirely true. We’re reaching out to Apple for further comment and will update this post with any new information.

Historically, Apple usually admits its mistakes by quietly brushing them aside. But that was the Apple under Steve Jobs — not under new CEO Tim Cook. Some have suggested that Jobs would have hated the Genius commercials because they contained customers, so it’s unlikely they’d even have been approved in the first place.

Regardless of why the cringeworthy advertisements got banished, the decision comes weeks before Apple’s rumored iPhone 5 announcement — meaning Apple will have something pretty to focus on in its next round of commercials.

We’ve embedded the commercials below via YouTube for anyone who is in the mood to cringe.

Screenshot via Apple/YouTube

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Google’s having no problems getting its Nexus 7 tablet out the door to tech geeks — yesterday we learned that the 16 gigabyte model has sold out due to high demand. Now Google is getting ready to target the average buyer with its first Nexus 7 TV commercial.

The ad shows a father and son bonding over the 7-inch tablet during a camping trip. It feels a lot more human than Google’s previous ads (though some of its Google+ ads were getting there), and in many ways it could be mistaken for a heartwarming Apple ad. And just like Apple’s Siri ads, it projects a very idealized (and almost fantastical) view of the product.

While the ad succeeds at pulling the heartstrings, it may give consumers an inaccurate view of the Nexus 7, since it fudges a major drawback to the tablet: it’s Wi-Fi only, so you wouldn’t be taking your Nexus 7 camping without a wireless hotspot. At the end of the commercial it’s revealed that the duo were actually camping out in their backyard (something that only ever seems to happen in cute TV ads), so technically they were getting Internet access from their house.

Even though it’s a Wi-Fi only tablet, I still heartily recommend the Nexus 7. It’s the first Android tablet that hasn’t made me want to smash it into pieces, and at $200 it’s a no-brainer purchase.

Via The Next Web; Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

“T-Commerce” is the annoying and hokey term PayPal is using to describe its next big opportunity to grow revenue through transactions on regular television sets.

As such, the company just forged a partnership with DVR service and set-top box maker TiVo that will allow their subscribers to make purchases or donations when a commercial pop up on-screen. All TiVo subscribers need is their trusty remote and a PayPal account. (Actually, you also need money, because otherwise the entire experience would just be pointless and frustrating.) The “buy via remote” option will be available to TiVo owners with TiVo Premiere four-tuner DVRs.

The functionality, which will be eligible for retail stores, political campaigns, and non-profits, is expected to roll out this fall, reports BusinessWeek. Additionally, consumers will also be able to take advantage of coupons and provide advertisers with a way to text them deals to their cellphone, which I’m sure everyone is extremely psyched about.

“We think television is the next big one coming down the pike,” PayPal Vice President Scott Dunlap told BusinessWeek, adding that the company will make money by charging transaction fees. According to PayPal-parent company Ebay’s Q1 2012 earnings report, PayPal accounts for 20 percent of all online transactions, and a third of all transactions made on mobile devices.

PayPal is also in discussions with Comcast about offering its “pay by remote” functionality to Comcast subscribers. And while PayPal is making money off of fees, partners like TiVo and Comcast might be able to charge more money to potential advertising clients for commercials with this functionality. It’s a perfect partnership, and something that the TV industry is going to have to do more of in the future if it wants to continue engaging its audience, rather than losing it to commercial-skipping technology.

Image via tele52 /Shutterstock

It seems that television service providers are finally coming around to the hard truth that most people avoid the long commercial breaks between programming whenever possible.

Largest U.S. satellite television provider DirecTV said today it may allow its subscribers to automatically skip commercial breaks whenever they record a show on their DVR. The company obtained commercial-skipping tech when it purchased Replay TV about five years ago but has declined to roll out the functionality. So, what’s holding it back?

“We haven’t chosen to use it. It’s not clear to me there’s a raging demand from consumers for it,” DirecTV CEO Mike White said during a media event hosted by Reuters. I think we can all agree that he’s either playing dumb to appease TV networks or really out of touch with his viewing audience. Because, let’s be honest, some people purposely miss the first live-air broadcast of a TV show so they can watch it on DVR and skip through the commercials. If they can’t do that, people will play on their smartphones, or flip through channels until the show comes back on air.

Still, the fact that DirecTV is toying with the idea of an auto commercial skipping feature should say a lot about the TV ad industry’s failure to evolve with its viewing audience. If it does end up deploying the commercial skipping feature, it won’t be the first.

Last month, rival satellite TV provider Dish Network rolled out a “Hopper” DVR box that automatically skips through commercials on all recorded content. The company contends that people are already skipping through commercials, and that features like this give Dish an edge over competitors. The Hopper functionality prompted major broadcast networks Fox NBCUniversal, and CBS to file lawsuits against Dish, claiming that the company was now making illegal copies of programs. (Dish then filed a counter suit, asking judges to affirm its right to offer commercial skipping technology). Basically, it’s just the latest symptom revealing that the TV ad industry is sick — and on its way to a slow death if nothing changes.

White said DirecTV is monitoring Dish’s legal situation as it continues to evaluate whether or not to deploy its own commercial-skipping boxes.

Photo via scyther5 /Shutterstock

What if your ads watched you while you were watching them? Microsoft is set to debut its new motion-sensitive advertising project NUads next month, which the company says will revamp the TV ad industry by doing just that.

The company’s natural user-interface ads, or NUads, use Xbox Kinect’s motion sensing technology to transform TV commercials into something you can actively participate in with minimal effort. For instance, people can vote in real-time for a product or service by waving their hand, schedule a calendar reminder for an upcoming TV show, or say “Xbox Near Me” to see a map of locations for whatever retail store just advertised to them. Microsoft first showed off its NUads project at the Cannes International Advertising Festival last June.

“During the Super Bowl, you’re watching TV, some great ads pop up,” said Microsoft manager Lyn Watts in a recent Cnet report. “You say something like, ‘Xbox share,’ it’ll share automatically, on Facebook or Twitter, whatever you like. Advertisers are really impressed by this.”

Essentially, the NUads platform has the potential to start producing commercials that “watch you” while your watching them. In doing so, Microsoft thinks it can lure people away from DVR devices that permit skipping through the commercial breaks that play throughout a TV show. Satellite television service provider Dish Network is even making new DVR boxes (the appropriately named “Hopper” box)  that automatically “hops” through those commercials.

The NUads launch couldn’t have come at a better time for the broadcast television industry, which has recently spoken out about how traditional advertising is failing to keep up with audience behavior.

Monday, Chairman of NBC Broadcasting Ted Harbert said “we can no longer ignore time-shifting” within the business model to drive ad revenue. The problem with “time-shifted” (a.k.a. DVR) devices is that the industry doesn’t have enough control to make sure those commercials will play for an audience the way they do for live broadcasting. With NUads, there might be a compelling reason for people to watch commercials willingly and prevent them from skipping through.

NUads could replace Nielsen TV ratings

Harbert also criticized the industry’s standard for content ratings through Nielsen, saying  “We’re participating in many initiatives to try and crack the measurement code because we just can’t wait — and wait some more — for Nielsen to do it.” This puts Microsoft as well as its new NUads platform in the perfect position to step up.

Using the Kinect device, NUads have a far greater means of measuring how people react to a piece of content as well as advertising. It can detect a person’s facial expressions, record/sense audio reactions, and even transmit pieces of video. If done right, Microsoft developers could anonymize this kind of data through the Kinect SDK, and give them an incentive to make sense of this information for advertisers. Basically, a person’s unique private data wouldn’t be shared, but their collective reactions could be turned into important analytics. For example, a laundry detergent commercial that evokes an emotional response in the form of “aww” along with positive facial expressions — not, “Sally from 505 Nowhere Street laughed and cooed obnoxiously at the puppy.”

Microsoft’s Watts did, however, warn all developers to stay mindful of potential privacy intrusion features by adding disclosure statements when appropriate as well as knowing what you’ll do with the data before its collected.

Cnet’s report indicated the NUads interactive advertising platform will launch in late Spring. My guess is that Microsoft will probably coincide the launch with its Xbox announcements at the E3 event in June.

Update 5/17/2012: Microsoft reached out to VentureBeat in regards to the roll out of NUads, clarifying that it hasn’t made any announcement regarding Kinect’s ability to capture data from its users for ad targeting purposes.

The Kinect can capture user data, but Microsoft isn’t enabling this functionality right now. The company did, however, conduct an entire presentation at the PII conference discussing issues of privacy related to this kind of data capturing technology.

Microsoft’s statement to us is pasted below:

To be clear, the presentation at the PII conference did not announce targeted advertising features. The focus of the presentation was the future of advertising and the potential privacy issues managers at other companies must consider as technologies such as Kinect transform the industry. Microsoft takes the privacy of its consumers very seriously. Internally, Microsoft has strict policies in place that prohibit the collection, storage or use of Kinect data for the purpose of advertising.

Image via Microsoft

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Electronics retail company Best Buy decided to forgo the regular celebrity spokesperson for its annual Super Bowl commercial in favor of highlighting mobile technology innovators.

During this year’s Super Bowl game, the company aired a 30-second commercial titled “Phone Innovators. The commercial  featured a handful of heavy hitters, including camera phone inventor Philippe Kahn, text-to-speech inventor Ray Kurzweil, SMS message innovator Neil Papworth, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom, Square founder Jim McKelvey, and Shazam creators Chris Barton and Avery Wang.

However, the big highlight of the commercial was definitely the appearance of Words With Friends game creators Paul and David Bettner. A flight attendant hushes the two men during their introduction — poking fun at 30 Rock actor Alec Baldwin, who was removed from a plane months ago after refusing to turn off his phone while playing a rousing game of Words With Friends.

Best Buy said it decided to swap out its regular celebrity endorsement for this year’s commercial after noticing the outpouring admiration from people after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ death in October. Best Buy Marketing chief Drew Panayiotou previously told Reuters that “Silicon Valley inventors are today’s stars.”

We’ve taken the liberty of embedding both the 30-second Best Buy Super Bowl commercial (as well as the extended cut) below.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple has begun airing its first television ad for the hyped iPhone 4S, but instead of focusing on improved hardware, the ad’s emphasis is all about Siri, the phone’s handy “personal assistant.”

The iPhone 4S has been a smashing success in the sales department, with more than 4 million units sold in the U.S. in its first three days of availability. Apple’s big three selling points for the new device are the 8-megapixel camera that could viably replace your point-and-shoot, the dual-core A5 processor that speeds it up and the Siri personal assistant. In VentureBeat’s review of the device, Devindra Hardawar noted Siri was easily the most noticeable addition.

The 30-second ad, called “Assistant,” is simple, effective, and maybe most importantly, cool. It runs through several people talking to Siri on their iPhones with various questions and problems. Examples include one woman saying “We have a flat tire,” a man asking “How do I tie a bow tie again?” and a woman asking “Do I need an umbrella in New York this weekend?” Finally, the ad demonstrates Siri helping a woman find telephone numbers for a locksmith after being locked out. And of course it wouldn’t be an Apple ad without a narrator calling the iPhone 4S “the most amazing iPhone yet.”

It’s curious why this ad wasn’t launched even earlier, as Apple usually has a great ad on hand when it launches a new iPhone or iPad. Maybe the company didn’t realize how well-liked and how talked about Siri was going to be when it introduced the software. I know that Siri is the first thing I usually show people when I show off my iPhone 4S, and I’ve even heard people on the street talking to Siri as if it (or perhaps she) is a real person.

Watch the full iPhone 4S commercial with Siri below:

The new advertising feature is intended to improve the ad experience for people watching the commercials as well as brands by improving ad targeting. For example, I could choose to view a Samsung mobile phone commercial instead of the one about a female shaving kit.

Basically, when a commercial begins playing, users can click on a new Hulu Ad Swap button in the top left corner of the video player. Clicking the button brings up three different choices of ads that are customized using whatever data Hulu has collected about each individual user.

The downside is that if you choose a different ad, you essentially have to watch it from the beginning — thus making the commercial break longer. However, it’s a small price to pay to avoid having an annoying Old Navy commercial’s jingle (inspired by ’80s pop star Tiffany) stuck in your head for days.

The advertiser whose ad initially began to play is not charged for that impression, according to Hulu, which calls this a win-win scenario since advertisers aren’t wasting money on impression that have no impact.

Hulu is also being reasonable about the number of users who will actually use this new feature.

“Going forward, we are not expecting all Hulu users to swap ads every time they are offered the option to swap,” wrote Hulu Director of Research & Sales Strategy Bryon Schafer in a blog post.  “The power behind Hulu Ad Swap is that a user has maximum control over their ad experience, and can swap their ad if they choose to do so. In fact, we expect response rates of around three percent.”

The option to choose which commercials play is yet another feature in Hulu’s advertising arsenal, which helped bring in more than 600 major advertisers and a projected $500 million in revenue by the end of 2011.