In advertising, the goal is to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time. If you could do this every time, you’d have a very successful ad campaign. That’s what we’re all working for.

In online advertising, it gets a lot easier to target the right audience for your ad. Today’s technology allows us to analyze who goes where, what they’re looking for, and when they’re most likely to click on an ad. We can measure the effectiveness of certain ads in certain places. We’re getting closer to the promise land.

And with the introduction of social media, we know more about the people who are looking at our ads than ever before. Facebook and other companies have made it commonplace to put the power of ads into the hands of the consumer. Getting feedback on ads in real time is now a possibility. And so enters the ad that caught my eye on Hulu yesterday.

At the top of the ad, overlaying the video that was playing, was a simple question:

“Is this ad relevant to you?”

After the question I could click on either Yes, or No. Hulu, or the advertising platform that they use, is collecting this data. They can match this against my personal history and preferences, and also against the answer of everyone else who watched the same video. By doing this they’re better able to target ads and serve advertisers in the future.

In a real-time/measurement/consumer feedback driven world, this kind of data becomes extremely powerful.