Is This The Future of Advertising?

Absolutely not.

The future of advertising, such as it is, should absolutely not involve intrusive content of any kind. This includes what the article states as "It does not give me five different messages, it gives me one message. It is actually asking me to do something." I do not want to be asked to do anything. I want to see what I've asked for, and no more.

Users do not want popups, inline ads, redirects, overlays, or anything that gets in the way of the content they explicitly request. The arms race mentioned in the article, where users constantly find ways around ads and advertisers have to find new ways to push content to them, is going to continue. There will always be ways around intrusive content, and finding new ways to intrude is not going to solve the advertising problem. Rather, finding new ways to intrude is the same thing as finding new ways to annoy potential customers. Sure, it'll increase brand awareness, but wouldn't it be better to do so without them thinking "Oh come on not another freaking ad" in the process?

What will work, and has to work for advertising to remain relevant and continue into the future, is to integrate marketing into content that I explicitly request.

In practice, this means that companies should make products that are liked by people I respect, so that when they mention it on twitter or facebook I pay attention. This does not include "share and like this", because I hate that stuff, and it's obviously a stunt.

As a distant second place, I'm also happy to see ads that consist of well-crafted and entertaining or educational content. This is very difficult, and is what we know as "viral marketing". However, it's such a common trope these days that it's easy to see a viral ad as an ad, and that feels like it's cheating. The article says "The very best ads are very emotional and funny. If you make advertisements that one can relate to, that changes the ads. People will allow it." While that is true, it's also true that they're still seen as ads, and that provides a psychological hurdle to people who have grown to dislike advertisements for what they are.

Rather than advertise blatantly, provide some sort of supported content that I want to go to see that happens to include product placement or a demonstration of features as an incidental characteristic of the content, rather than as the key point.

In short, to get the attention of future customers, give them content that they want to see so much that they explicitly request it, and don't intrude on other content.

No. Advertisements are trying to be more and more subtle whilst still being noticeable. The advertisements demoed in that video are no better than pop-ups.

And God almighty, if I hear another startup video with a ukulele playing as background music, I'm likely to go into a homicidal rage.

No.