Virgin Mobile's YouTube channel uses ‘BlinkWashing’ to change the ad whenever you blink
Virgin Mobile's YouTube page has one of the coolest things I've seen online in some time. It is using a webcam technology it calls “BlinkWashing” to track your eye movements and change the ad whenever you blink.
Context & Ripple Effects
Earlier coverage cast online-video advertising as a problem of matching advertising to video, while YouTube also explored a more effortless viewing mode. Virgin Mobile applies a different lever: the viewer’s own eye movement becomes the trigger for the creative experience.
The campaign makes a YouTube placement an interactive unit rather than a fixed pre-roll or display-style message, using the webcam as its input mechanism.
First-order effects
- Virgin Mobile gains a distinctive YouTube campaign format in which each viewer blink advances or replaces the advertisement.
- Viewers who opt into the webcam interaction encounter an ad experience whose sequence responds to their eye movements rather than a preset playback path.
Second-order effects
- Agencies building comparable video campaigns must treat creative as a sequence of responsive states, not a single linear spot.
- YouTube advertisers gain a visible example of webcam-based interaction that competes for attention with conventional video ad formats.
Third-order effects
- If brands adopt eye-movement-triggered creative more broadly, online video advertising will shift toward interaction designs that make viewer behavior part of ad delivery.
- The format raises the strategic importance of platforms and campaigns that can turn passive video viewing into measurable, device-mediated participation.
The trend: Online video advertising is moving from contextual placement toward formats that use viewer behavior to shape the creative experience.