I submitted a press release a couple of days ago through PRWEB, and it’s been up all day today. Here’s a link to it. I’m pretty excited about it, and I hope the story will get picked up by the media. Any attention should help increase people’s awareness of my site and my content, and that would be a great thing!
Tag Archives: advertising
The latest Mac ads from Apple
I love the latest ads from Apple. They feature two guys posing as a PC and a Mac. Of course, the PC guy is staid-looking, with a dated hairdo and a business suit, and the Mac guy is casual, somewhat cool. They star in a series of ads highlighting the various benefits of a Mac, with titles such as Viruses, Restarting, Better, iLife, Network, and of course, Walt Mossberg’s flattering iMac review in the WSJ.
I like the one called Network. The two are holding hands and calling it a Network. 🙂 The tension of that wary network is pretty thick until the latest Japanese camera joins it. Then things get more relaxed… for the Mac.
Great stuff!
Attack of the viral campaign ads
From Wired News: “It’s the hottest new trend in political advertising: Lampoon your opponent in an online cartoon, and hope it goes viral. By Steve Friess.”
Problem is, we tend to be less critical of critical cartoon ads… When an opponent muckrakes another in a real ad, we think he’s a schmuck. But when he does it in a cartoon, we think it’s cute, yet the same message is gotten across. Yes, cartoon ads are more powerful, and in that sense, more dangerous than real ads. This is a problem! Here is the link.
The Lambretta Twist
Here is the link to a wonderful video from the 60s, advertising THE moped of the hour, called the Lambretta.
Audience-inclusive advertising
After the new video iPod launched, and the possibility to purchase and download ad-free TV shows came to light, I realized that the advertising industry would have to come up with some clever ways to keep their audience if they were to maintain revenues. The following ideas sprung to mind:
- A site can be set up and maintained by a consortium of advertising agencies and brand owners or a neutral body, that would either track viewer product preferences through data mining and random surveys, or would actively encourage users to register and provide product preferences. Alternately, existing user data could be compiled from various databases.
- Advertising during TV shows that certain user groups watch could be more closely targeted to those groups by ad personalization. Users could register for the chance to have an ad dedicated to them. For example, a sample user we’ll call Jane could indicate that she likes the MINI Cooper, and so when an ad for the Cooper runs during a show that she likes to watch, names can be selected at random from the database of users, and if her name comes up, that ad could say: “This goes out to Jane” before it runs, and end with a “Thanks, Jane!” Quite simple, really, but it serves to capture the audience, since people will stay tuned during the ads just to see if their name will come up.
- This concept can be expanded to include groups of users, perhaps up to 3-5 identifiable users per ad.
- Through the medium of the website, brand owners can also take a cue from the users about the kind of products they need to advertise, this time in a more direct way, through hard data. Even more, they can more easily survey the users about the kind of new products they want to see.
- Another way to keep the audience is to offer prizes for watching the ads and picking through clues that are weaved through both the ads and the shows. Entries can then be registered on the show’s site or at this main site for a chance to win something, perhaps even products featured on the show, or something as banal as an actor’s coat, or the actual bottle of perfume used by an actress on the show. These aren’t things that cost much but mean a lot to the audience.
- People are making a big deal about product placement, but I think that reaches a saturation point very quickly. You can’t plaster products all over the screen and detract from the value of the story or the entertainment. Product placements works when it’s subtle, weaved into the story, and reinforced through the regular ads.
Raoul Pop 