A big part of this Substack is documenting our new online ad model, Vusub - a time-shifted ad experience for paid subscriptions. I have written a series of posts here that document the idea pretty extensively - in a nutshell, we’re basically trying to make advertising useful again for writers and creators. We want to remove all the bad incentives and the annoying/interruptive aspects of the current model and replace it with something far more user centric.
The idea is pretty simple, instead of paying a monthly subscription fee, you opt into watching ads to pay creators instead. But the ads are better, there is no set time you have to watch them, and you get to choose the ads you watch. The best metaphor we have for it is a ‘credit card’ - the ‘goods and services’ you buy each month are the content you consume, and you pay your balance off not with money, but with your attention.
The first bit of news is that we are making a subtle change to our brand name and we have a new logo!
The brand change is moving from ‘Vusub’ (from ‘Viewsub’). The new name is pronounced the same, but it’s shorter and we think a little more ‘brandy’. It feels like we can also do some fun things with the name in the future as it doesn’t have an actual word in it. I’ve worked a lot with name/logo creation and my overall take-away is that you can definitely get a name/logo wrong, but there are lots of ways to get it right. Hopefully this is one of them!
Our new logo is also a bit more colorful and maybe ‘playful’? We want people to think of fun/entertainment when they think of us as ultimately the ad and branded content experience should be fun.
The second big bit of news is we are moving into a ‘live’ test of the system. We’re already pretty confident people like this idea as we’ve tested the concept and it tested strongly. But you don’t know for sure until you actually build something and put it out there. That’s our next step.
Part of that step has been made a lot easier with our partnership with AdForum. They are a central archive of really high-quality ads and branded content (web films mainly). So we get to test some great ads in the feed. I’ve been searching through their database for a week or so and there are some amazing pieces of content there. This one below stood out. As a Dad of a Special Needs kid, this kind of message really hits home. The NDSS did a great job!
I also have to mention this short web film from Ferrari commemorating Lewis Hamilton’s arrival as a Ferrari driver in Formula 1. If you remember the original Ferris Bueller’s Day off, this scene is recreated to almost perfection with Lewis in the role of the mischievous garage station attendant.
Really great stuff!
There are lots of other great ad/branded content that’s out there that will be showcased in Vusub. The cool part is you get to be entertained while paying for your subscriptions, and the writers/creators get the lion’s share of all the ad dollars! Not the platforms.
To that end, we’re also looking for more writers/creators/publishers to test the system with. If you have, or know of, any paywalled Substacks that might be interested in testing out the system, please email me at paulsoldera@gmail.com or message me directly on here!