With ads infiltrating seemingly every aspect of our lives and now becoming more intelligent, it seems like there’s no escape. Fortunately, Sony just applied for a patent to give us the upper hand…sort of.

The patent they applied for deals with interactive software streams to your television that ask you to engage with the commercial to get a reward. For example, saying the name of the brand presented would allow you to skip the rest of the commercial. At first glance, it seems harmless and nice. I personally would be willing to shout angrily the name of a brand that constantly is thrown at me in order to get back to “Sons of Anarchy.” As you look into the possibilities and negative impacts though, it seems like there may be too many moving parts for this to go well.

First off, voice recognition systems and motion detection systems are nightmares, I mean look at Kinect for XBOX. That speed bump aside, the interactive aspect is something that entices people. Sony pitched the idea with McDonald’s involved, but they also brought up other brands that could incorporate shooting, racing, trivia games and other activities to get viewers actively involved to earn rewards. Another big hiccup is getting everyone to have the necessary technology like motion detectors and voice recognition, etc. The idea sounds insane, terrifying, chaotic, but ultimately enticing. Mark Wilson, a writer for Fastcodesign.com, touched base on some key ideas that could bring real interaction between customers and corporations.

“Imagine if Burger King gave you a 30-second, pickle-laden Angry Birds level rather than a montage of flame broiled beef. Or better still, consider what McDonald’s could do allowing viewers the chance to ask the company an earnest, database-answerable question—‘how much protein is in a cheeseburger?’ or ‘where do your fries come from?’ or ‘how many Happy Meals do you serve a day?’ or even ‘what are you doing for animal welfare?’”

He makes a great point though. Allowing for customers to actually interact with a company and to be actively involved in brand management and advertising is much better than the latent commercial viewing we see today. This has the opportunity to engage consumers on a whole different level and to create real dialog between consumer and corporation.

This system has the potential to give viewers the satisfaction they desire of skipping advertisements, give corporations a new, interactive form of advertising while giving them new insight into consumers, and can ultimately change the relationship model in advertising forever. This patent filed by Sony can be an absolute train wreck of an idea or can stimulate real interaction, let’s hope Sony achieves the latter.