Phillips Electronics pays the media for allowing it not to advertise. For instance:

• It buys up ad segments on Sixty Minutes, and then gives them back to ABC so that viewers can have more reporting time, and less ads
• It pays magazines to take out their annoying subscriber cards (It paid $2 million to Hearst to do this for a month in 4 of their magazines

This “sense and simplicity” campaign links the concept of simplicity to Phillips’ consumers, and it seems that the response is very positive. Once, when Phillips sponsored ads of a news program that it then “gave back” to the news team, not only did the viewership increase by 8%, but Phillips got over 9000 grateful emails from the viewers.

Personally, I hope this catches on. I would love to see a short clip before say, Prison Break, that says something to the tune of : “This show is brought to you by Peugeot 207, which promises not to interrupt your viewing once….” Novel, and welcome. As it is, my PVR fast forward button works overtime, and the ads are just annoying.

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