Emergence Marketing: advertising Archives

November 14, 2007

Fun Viagra ads

While on the topic of ads - here are a couple of clever Viagra ads :)
(via Ads of the World)

November 13, 2007

The end of advertising as we know it

A new study by the IBM Institute for Business Value predicts that the next 5 years will hold more change for the advertising industry than the previous 50 did (here for executive summary, and here for full pdf report of the study).

Based on a survey of 2,400 consumers and feedback from 80 advertising execs, they see four change drivers that will shift control within the Industry:

Attention - consumers are increasingly in control of where they direct their attention. And not just by using Tivo-like products which enable them to skip ads and watch what they want when they want it, but because of a fundamental shift from TV usage to PC usage. 71% of the survey respondents use the Internet more than 2 hours a day, with only 48% spending equivalent time watching TV. 19% spend six hours or more on a PC with just 9% watching that much TV.

Creativity - consumers now have the tools to create their own user-generated and peer-delivered content. User generated content sites are already the top destinations for viewing online video, attracting 39% of the survey respondents.

Measurement - advertising executives predict that 20% of all advertising dollars will shift from impression-based models to impact-based models within 3 years.

Advertising inventories - ad space is increasingly available through open exchanges instead of proprietary channels that were controlled by broadcasters.

Based on these drivers, and considering that two of them have a high degree of uncertainty - the attention driver and the open inventory driver - the study envisions 4 possible scenarios for 2012:

Continued Evolution: One to many still dominates but thanks to DVR's, increased penetration of CGC and better measurement techniques, a greater portion of direct marketing dollars gets allocated to channels typically used for brand oriented advertising.

Open Exchange: Not much changes in this scenario other than most inventory gets bought through open exchanges.

Consumer Choice: In this scenario the user takes full control of the way ads get viewed and filtered.

Ad Marketplace: In this one the consumer choose preferred ad types as part of self-programming their media choices and are more involved with the creation and distribution of the ads.

Here is how the study predicts advertising spend allocation will evolve over the next 3 years:

[Tags: marketing advertising IBM]

Anti-Hummer campaign

This one is quite funny...

(via Coolz0r)

November 7, 2007

History repeats itself - ad skipping in 1934

This article in the April 4th edition of Modern Mechanix reminds us that many new ideas are...well not so new after all - "Radio listeners who dislike advertising announcements and long speeches will welcome a new invention that automatically shuts off voice programs."

(via MIT's Advertising Lab)

September 4, 2007

Funny Toyota ad in Brazil

(link for RSS subscribers)

August 23, 2007

Advertisers vs. online identity

On NPR last night they were discussing the impact of of the known presence of registered sex offenders on social networking sites like MySpace or FaceBook on how advertisers will make their advertising decisions...concluding at one point with an expert opining "well if I were P&G I would worry"...

Should they really worry? Do they worry now whether sexual predators subscribe to the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times online? Is the importance of identity in marketing really different online then offline?

July 27, 2007

Interesting research on online video usage

The Pew Internet & American Life Project released some interesting research about online video usage. It was especially interesting to see those results in light of a project that we are working on (work in progress at www.crappybills.com - feedback welcome!).

57% of online adults have used the Internet to watch or download videos, and 19% do so on a daily basis. More than half (57%) of online video viewers share links with others, and 75% say they receive links to online videos from others!

For young adults (18-29) comedy is the biggest draw, with 56% watching humorous videos.

[Tags: online marketing online video youtube]

July 2, 2007

Cool PSP ad

Sony came out with a fake book - including fake hands - to let you play with your PSP while looking seriously busy with your book. Too bad it's in Italy or I would definitely try to get one of those :)

[via engadget]

February 16, 2007

Time shifting and skipping ads on DVR's is not as prevalent as previously believed

While data from Tivo showed that 70% of what TiVo owners watch is time shifted and that TiVo owners tend to fast forward about 70% of the ads when viewing pre-recorded content (see also Thomas Hawk for written report on the iMedia podcast where a Tivo representative discloses that data), new data released by Nielsen now shows that people who own DVR's still watch 2/3 of the ads and that 50% of them watch their shows in real time.

That is quite a shift in less than one year...or could it just be that Tivo owners are more geeky than other DVR owners so that their data is skewed compared to the market averages?

February 14, 2007

New Real Beauty Campaign by Dove

This one from the UK...(via 50 plus marketing)

Link here for RSS subscribers.

January 27, 2007

Size does not matter

This is a great ad for the new Golf GTI with its tiny engine that still produces plenty of horsepower...(via the thinking blog)

January 20, 2007

Interesting Oticon ad

September 21, 2006

Commercial buddies and friends on MySpace

ClickZ Experts has an interesting article on Social Network Marketing by Sean Carton. In it he lists some of the profiles of advertisers on MySpace.

Helga - for Volkswagen, a 25 year old female from Germany has 9144 friends

The Original MySpace Burger King King - male, 52yo - has 3255 friends (he's probably too old for MySpace)

Smart - the Wendy's Square - a 28 yo single male (and with an unsure orientation) - has 79,840 friends

It all looks pretty cheesy - surely there must be better ways to promote products to the youth market.

[Tags: social networking myspace advertising online advertising]

August 17, 2006

Another bad interrupt marketing example...

AdAge reports that some marketing dinosaur has found another 100 square feet of "wasted" ad space in supermarkets - the conveyor belts at the check-out lines! Worse - he is holding a patent on the damn interrupt marketing technique and besides selling ad space, he is also offering advertisers a "chance" to shut out competitors for the modest price of $182,800 for 55 stores!

Hey - why stop there? Why not advertise on the check-out clerk's forehead? Or at the very least on their clothes.

Like Adrants says - soon we'll have grocery baggers and check-out clerks flooding our hospitals for dizziness and our mental institutions for insanity! And what about the consumers?

Isn't interrupt marketing dead? Maybe it's time to start a wiki with the worst interrupt marketers around.

[Tags: interrupt marketing advertising ads consumer abuse ]

August 16, 2006

Advertisers on social networking sites

Nellie Lide over at New Persuasion has the following to say about advertisers on social networking sites (via social customer manifesto):

I think brands will have to go beyond a conversation - though that's a good start - they have to be willing to develop and maintain a relationship/friendship with their customers over the long-term. And I think companies are looking at these sites all wrong. Advertisers, marketers, product-makers are trying to figure out how to exploit and use all the people on these sites - when they should be studying what these folks are doing and try to figure out how they can help these social sites be better for their users. Not more cluttered with their ads. If your product and brand don't really fit in - stay out. Know your customer and respect your customer - that's it.

Amen

At the risk of being repetitive - marketing is not about interrupting or intercepting people, it's about assisting them!

[Tags: marketing advertising brands social networking ]

July 17, 2006

Would you buy eggs with advertising on them?

The New York Times has an article on how CBS is planning to advertise their fall line-up right in your refrigerator (via Freakonomics blog)...

That is almost as bad as advertising on sheep along the highway...

Isn't interrupt marketing dead?

Or perhaps this is how people interpret Ambient Findability... if I can see what is on TV when cooking breakfast, then maybe I will program my VCR or Tivo to record it...

nah...

[Tags: advertising marketing interrupt marketing cbs]

July 1, 2006

Affiliate marketing run amok...

This site just got spammed by affiliate marketing sites promoting some new Nokia phone...which led to the ban of Nokia as a keyword on comments. Somehow it is hard to believe that Nokia would benefit from such tactics...and even harder to believe that their marketers would have condoned this...

But is there really nothing they can do to stop this behavior?

June 15, 2006

$50M ad campaign for newspaper advertising...

Check out this new $50M advertising campaign by the Newspaper Association of America. Maybe I am missing something...but what does "in an opt-out world, consumers opt in to newspaper advertising" really mean? Would it get you to buy more newspaper ads?

[Tags: advertising newspapers]

June 2, 2006

Another really interesting Skypecast on the future of marketing

I was lucky enough to host PR guru Larry Weber and interactive marketing pioneer Lois Kelly for a great conversation on the future of marketing. You can listen to the conversation by downloading the MP3 of the session here.

Some random snippets from the discussion include:

"...the first thing marketers should do is stop spending so much money on traditional media - it's like throwing water into the boat, and not out of the boat..."

"...many marketing departments embrace the new marketing platforms but it's amazing to see how they organize themselves like they did 25 years ago..."

"...I would organize marketing from the bottom up....innovation still never comes from the top down....I would look at things less in categories like PR, advertising, direct marketing....and start looking more in campaign orientation...."

"...the weaker the dialog the weaker the brand...the stronger the dialog the stronger the brand..."

"...Madison ave hijacked the browser in the last 10 years...we need to reclaim it..."

"...marketing should be at the center of everything...because the center of dialog will be at the center of a company's success..."

"...the "idiot of the month" award goes to the Disney Corporation..." talking about their TIVO proof technology.

I will publish a more thoughtfully digested version soon, but wanted to give you some snippets to entice you to listen to this great conversation asap. And don't forget that Lois and Larry will be having a live conversation at our marketing innovation conference next week - so make sure to join us there!

[Tags: skypecast larry weber lois kelly marketing corante cmarketing future new marketing]]

May 24, 2006

Spoof advertising - what do you do when this happens to your brand?

Ouch - I bet you that Absolute is not too pleased with these (from Adbusters via Coolz0r)...

spoof absolute.jpg

Caption on this one says "Nearly 50% of automobile fatalities are linked to alcohol. 10% of North Americans are alcoholics. A teenager sees 100,000 alcohol ads before reaching the legal drinking age."

spoof 2.jpg

Caption on this one is " "Drink provokes the desire but takes away the performance" -William Shakespeare"

And it's not just Absolute...here is another good one from Adbusters

calvin klein.jpg

There are some good examples of consumer generated content...

[Tags: word of mouth wom viral marketing spoof advertising cgm]

New study finds no link between ad performance and magazine reader time

A new study by Starch Communications research found that there is no connection between ad effectiveness and reader "engagement" with magazines - i.e., the frequency with which they read the magazine, the total time they spend with the magazine, how much of an issue they finish, etc. (via adage).

This is so counter-intuitive that at first it seems almost impossible. After all, with high engagement comes a whole lot more impressions. That being said, maybe this proves the point that advertising only works on those people who are susceptible to that particular brand message at that particular point in time - either because they have an active need or because some other channel triggered their attention to the brand first.

[Tags: advertising attention engagement ]

May 23, 2006

Cheap advertising - or an expensive peep show?

"One million Swarovski crystals were needed in all to cover our breath-taking model with these sparkling little stones, thus creating an erotic overall-artwork.

With each purchased stone you uncover the artwork a little bit more and you help to overcome frontiers and make the earth sparkle!"

So goes the copy on the Million Crystal Body web site - and it goes on with "This way, we create a world-spanning community of people who appreciate high-quality aesthetics."

One Euro gets you one stone removed from the model's body. 50 Euro gets you a banner ad on the site.

Cheap advertising or a really expensive peep show? You can be the judge...

(via MIT Advertising Lab)

[Tags: advertising advertising gimmick sex sells ]

May 22, 2006

More and more "edgy" ads released by agency/company

After a version of the Volkswagen Passat ad was released a few weeks ago on YouTube where one of the characters with ego problems says "because mine is only yeah big" instead of the official version where he says "because I am overcompensating for my shortcomings," here comes another example of a vendor/ad agency planting a seemingly unapproved ad version online. This time the Durango ad, banned for TV, has two guys in a bathroom arguing about "Mine's bigger, no, mine is" (and 7 inches makes a difference - via Adrants).

While these are fun to watch, it can be dangerous for companies to release what could be construed as consumer generated ads. Although there is of course a major difference between the two, take the Sony PSP graffiti as an example of one such campaign that backfired.

[Tags: word of mouth wom viral marketing online marketing cgm]

May 8, 2006

Google competitors in search advertising still have a long way to go

It's not a secret that Yahoo, Microsoft and a slew of other smaller players are trying to play catchup with Google in selling ads on web searches as well as on content-specific sites - in fact Business Week dedicated a pretty good article to it last week (requires subscription).

We have been a user of Google AdWords for awhile and recently started playing with Yahoo's solution as well as with other solutions from smaller players.

The solutions from the smaller players were generating a lot of traffic, but we found a lot of the traffic to be garbage - coming from sites that do not even have content. That is especially the case when you enable foreign sites to carry your text/link ads.

While Yahoo has a powerful UI, it is not very intuitive. But perhaps the biggest issue with Yahoo's solution is it's human interface - the editors who are setting up things for you and who are approving or denying your ads. When you set up an account you fork over $150 for someone to help you set up an account. Not only does that process take 3 days, in our case everything was set up wrong. We wanted to advertise our upcoming Marketing Innovation event, but instead all the ads were set up to promote Corante as a place to find information about technology and science events. After trying to get them to fix it for a week, and after pre-paying another $475, we decided to toss out most of the original ads and recreate new ones ourselves. Of course, that takes up to 3 days to get approved by their editorial staff. Since this is a conference, and since a lot of people go to conferences to network, we thought that advertising the conference in the context of marketing job searches would make sense. The editorial staff did not think so and rejected all the job based keywords because of the word "job".

Now what is the value of having editorial control over the keywords? Having editorial control over content is understandable, but if someone wants to sell diapers or wipes in the context of searches for Mercedes, who cares?

[Technorati Tags: search advertising search marketing tahoo search marketing google adwords text ads]

May 4, 2006

Real HipHop

From Coloribus

March 16, 2006

Communicating with your competitors' customers

This is a pretty cool Durex ad (via Coolz0r).

[Technorati Tags: advertising viral advertising]

March 15, 2006

The role of advertising in startups and new product categories

Research, such as the research reported by Everett Rogers in Diffusion of Innovation, has shown that advertising works best on innovators and early adopters. It does not work as well on the early majority buyers. For majority buyers, interpersonal communications (word of mouth) from peers is the preferred mode of getting information. In fact, the same research shows that for all buyers as a whole, interpersonal communication has an effect on buying behavior that is over tenfold that of mass communication.

Furthermore, advertising works best in the awareness stage of the buying cycle. That is, if the buyer has the right predisposition to be informed by the ads. That occurs when the buyer has a need, or when some other change agent has approached the buyer about the possibilities first (i.e., expert in the press, colleague, etc.). If neither of those happen, then the buyer will not even hear or see the advertising – it will just be tuned out. In the preference stage, when the buyer starts forming an opinion about the product, most information comes from interpersonal communication. In the preference-forming stage, interpersonal communication may sometimes be substituted by expert commentaries and reviews.

Based on this, and stating the obvious, start ups who are peddling new product categories to innovators and early adopters should not waste their time and energy on brand advertising. Instead they should focus their efforts on lead generation and on influencing the influencers so that the right interpersonal conversations can get started.

[Technorati Tags: word of mouth marketing WOM brand advertising advertising]

February 16, 2006

Are you suffering from Overactive Adrenaline Disorder

Ford Marketers believe that you may feel good about being associated with this fictional disorder.

Indeed, according to ClickZ Network, Ford launched this invented disorder as part of an integral campaign designed to reach out to casual racing fans and to build an affinity between them and the Ford Racing team.

Rick Ross, the account director for JWT on the Ford Cars account, explains the underlying strategy as follows : "This was supposed to really make a connection with the fans and the drivers themselves. If you are a fan, you have an enjoyment of speed and thrills, and so do our drivers."

Building a campaign based on associating the shared values of the fans and the racers makes sense - but building it around a shared disorder may not be something that fans will feel good about. Would you feel good about being tagged with a disorder just because you like watching Ford racers?

Time will tell...this is clearly a good one to put on the watch-list...

[Technorati Tags: ford advertising]

February 1, 2006

The ads you won't see on Superbowl

Heavy.com has assembled ads that were censored and will not make it on the Superbowl (via online media daily).

Make sure you check out the "My Busted Apple", or "Bush's new career". The "Gone Daddy" and a few other ones clearly show that advertisers still believe that sex sells!

[Technorati Tags: superbowl advertising censored]

December 20, 2005

Ads talk back...

The bubble project is a pretty interesting one. People put empty bubbles on public display advertising - which encourages others to fill them out - click here for the bubble project manifesto. The filled out bubbles are then photographed and displayed on the bubble project's web site. Next year there are also plans to have them published in a book.

I am not sure that I would call this an open dialog with the advertisers, but it does make for some interesting results.

(via Church of the customer)

[Technorati Tags: advertising dialog identity bubbles]

December 19, 2005

Advertising that will not be shown in America

Advertising Age has a list of 10 advertising clips that will not be played in the US - probably for fear of those same people that tried to boycott Ford (and they are it again!), Target and others..

...too bad!

[Technorati Tags: advertising marketing]

December 14, 2005

Ford reverses it's decision...and will continue to advertise in gay magazines!

Ok...so maybe I will not feel so bad about driving a Ford after all - as they got the message - and reversed their decision not to cave in to religious extremists who wanted them not to advertise in Gay Magazines...

Religious boycotts (and many others) do not have real economic impact...they're just noise!

Ford - great move!

...next!

[Technorati Tags: ford boycott gay target]

December 7, 2005

Interesting advertising technique...

This week I was talking with a friend of mine, who had just arrived in San Francisco and who was walking downtown when he interrupted our phone conversation to tell me how he had just seen a car running by with a Starbucks cup on the roof - and how he could not believe how that that thing was staying up there.

Well here is the answer - via the Business 2.0 blog, and referring to Thomas Hawk's experience - it's an new advertising technique!

Whatever it takes to get people's attention...

[Technorati Tags: starbucks advertising attention]

November 19, 2005

A free condom with your mainstream magazine?

Adverblog has the story about a mainstream magazine in Belgium (my home country) which is including a free durex condom in each magazine and promoting it through a very funny, albeit it "provocative" (by this country' standards) "viral" ad called "durex: let the beast go."

WARNING: this is perhaps not suitable for download at work in countries that harbor religious extremists - and I'll let you compose that list!

;)...

[Technorati Tags: viral ads durex humoj]

October 25, 2005

Sex in ads does not sell

MediaAnalyzer just released the results of a survey where they looked at the impact of sexual ads on brand recall (here - via Brand Autopsy).

While almost half of the man said that they liked sexual ads, less than 10% of those that were exposed to the sexual ads could recall the brand that was advertised (compared to 19.8% for non-sexual ads). MediaAnalyzer calls that the "vampire effect" - with the sexual object sucking up all the attention. On the women side, 28% of them said there were too many sexual ads, and while they tend to avoid the sexual imagery when looking at sexual ads, their brand recall with sexual ads was less than half that of non-sexual ads (10.8% vs. 22.3%). The study hypothesizes that this might be attributable to a general numbing effect that sexual stimuli has on the brain.

...general numbing effect?

[Technorati Tags: sexual ads brand recall advertising]

October 24, 2005

AARP ad on marketing to older people

Last week I ran across this ad in AdAge. It's an AARP ad soliciting customers to advertise in their magazine. The copy reads "To most marketers, consumers die the minute they turn 50."

I wonder what David Wolf over at Ageless Marketing thinks about this one...

[Technorati Tags: demographics boomers]

October 20, 2005

Human advertising space

I just ran across this article in Entrepreneur Magazine (sorry not online yet) - where they talk about this guy who sells temporary tattoos on his forehead. He made good money so far and has gotten a lot of press - which is of course good for his clients. But Entrepreneur Mag goes so far as to say that the media coverage is probably helping his self-promotions as well - and that I am not so sure about...

[Technorati Tags: corporate tattoos billboards]

October 12, 2005

Shocking kids with advertising

Being from Belgium, and having grown up with the smurfs, this one came as a bit of a surprise.

In an effort to raise money to rehabilitate the children soldiers from Burundi, Unicef decided to create a short episode of the smurfs where the whole village get's annihilated by war planes. Apparently the short film pulls no punches - the final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably...

hmm...I am not sure how this will work. How about the kids that will get to see this?

Marketing accountability anyone?

According to MediaDailyNews, the Association of National Advertisers and Enterprise Marketing Management Group have released best practices for marketing accountability.

So what did they find?

"90 percent of what most companies spend on marketing is measurable, but providing the right metrics is a process that takes dedication and money." and also that "The task force also found that the pursuit of accountability can be difficult--especially demonstrating the effect of short-term marketing expenditures on brand equity".

According to the CEO of ANA: "The study aims to provide marketers with "strategic direction" for their accountability practices."

Why is it that I do not feel good about this? I have not seen the whole study, but to me it sounds like we are measuring discrete programs again instead of overall impact on customer buying behavior and most importantly - repeat buying behavior.

[Technorati Tags: customer service advertising branding]

October 3, 2005

The continued growth of the blogosphere - and its impact on marketing

OMMA Magazine this week has an interesting article (requires registration - which is free) summarizing recent industry studies and projections and reviewing the future of online advertising with industry experts.

We have touched on some of those recent studies here and here, but the article has some other interesting market tidbits about the role of blogs in the world of online marketing.

Here they are:

71% of U.S. Bloggers feel advertising on blogs is ok (according to BlogKits)
66.7% have clicked on ads (according to Blogads)
22% of business respondents planned to offer a new blog within the next six months (according to a CMO Magazine survey)
23.2% of respondents had used blogs to learn about products and services they were considering buying (according to a recent Taylor Nelson Softres study
93.7% of those found them helpful in making purchase decisions (Dell are you listening?)

The article is chock-full of great information. If online advertising is anywhere in your job description, it is definitely worth the read.

[Technorati Tags: online advertising blog advertising blogs]

September 30, 2005

Beat the vandals by copying them

According to the Russian Marketing Blog (via Global Voices - a fantastic blog btw) - Hachette was able to thwart vandals who were braking the light boxes and spraying graffiti on their Maxim magazine ads by modifying the ad so it looks as if it's behind broken glass and has graffiti already on it.

Not a single light box was broken since they did that!

[Technorati Tags: vandalism graffiti]

September 22, 2005

Advertising for boomers - right picture, wrong message?

As I was talking with David Wolf from Ageless Marketing yesterday he brought up a real interesting point - one which he's actually been writing about a lot, like here and here.

The point is that while the largest growing population segment in the US is that of the aging boomers - advertising still focuses primarily on the young. And even when companies try to appeal to the aging boomers by putting un-models and older people in their advertising, the message is clearly developed by young people and most often does not appeal to the value framework of aging boomers - so they see the pictures without resonating with the message.

It would be interesting to put that in context with the fastest growing population segments of growing economies like China and India - and see what challenges that mix brings to global brands.

[Technorati Tags: boomers marketing]

September 19, 2005

Advertising on money to promote TV show

According to the MIT Advertising Lab, NBC is promoting a show by advertising on money. They go into grocery stores and offer to pay for people's purchases using stacks of one dollar bills that have tiny advertising for the show attached to them.

I'd be curious to see how far these bills spread. Hopefully someone will do some network analysis on this one.

[Technorati Tags: viral marketing viral advertising]

eMarketer has new study on online ad spending

eMarketer released a new study on online ad spending - talking about online advertising as the comeback kid.

Some highlights include:

2005 will see a 33.7% growth in online ad spending year over year
2005 will see online ad spending go over $10B for the first time - and double the amount spent in 2002, when the market bottomed out
as can be expected - much of the online spending growth comes at the expense of traditional media

The funny thing is that the growth of online advertising hasn't kept pace with audience growth.

[Technorati Tags: ad spending online advertising]

September 13, 2005

Product placement in other companies' ads...

According to Agenda, Inc. - that's apparently the latest trend

...no more room left I guess.

[Technorati Tags: advertising product placement]

August 16, 2005

The anti-model ad - maybe not

Nike has come up with an interesting ad - my butt is big (via business 2.0 blog).

It's interesting to see that advertisers are moving away from the anorexic looking models to more real life models (another is Dove - as mentioned in the same B2.0 blog post).

I assume that means that buyers relate better with people that look like them as opposed to people that they may aspire to look like...not sure...but works for me.

[Technorati Tags: model nike]

August 12, 2005

Bumvertising

This is too funny - this guy is paying bums for advertising space in Seattle (from Agenda Inc.)

[Technorati Tags: advertising innovation]

July 12, 2005

Adware trying to clean up their act

Technology Review, the MIT publication, today has an article on the subject. Even without reading it - would you buy that?

Amazing how hard it is to overcome a negative association...it will be an interesting story to follow.

[Technorati Tags: reputation adware]

July 6, 2005

Behavioral ads on the rise

A recent study conducted by iMedia found that behavioral targeted ads (ads based on your behavior on a website or across an ad network) would climb from 12.6% in 2005 to over 20% in 2006 (here). Interestingly enough, the agencies that are not buying behavioral ads did so because of privacy and data security reasons.

Another interesting tidbit is that 30% of the agencies that buy behavioral ads use the adware technique (as opposed to working with an individual publisher or an ad network). The study does not list the share of behavioral ad spending that goes that route, but that surely will be impacted by the pending HR29 bill, the anti-spyware bill.

[Technorati Tags: spyware advertising]

June 9, 2005

You too own advertising real estate!

I was having lunch with a good friend of mine who told me about this latest marketing fad - body advertising. Corporate tattoo's on your body!

I know that Harley Davidson never had to pay people for them to "wear" Harley's brand on their birthday suit. But that people would go through very intimate and deeply personal interviews with corporate sponsors in order to qualify to get money for the company to put some sort of corporate or product tattoo on their body blew my mind.

I did a quick check online (although I do trust my friend), and found tons of sites. This one TatAd.com says:

"Tell us everything you feel comfortable with! It makes sense when you think about it, the companies will want to ensure you have the same interests as their customers so you can talk about their company with your friends."

That site has pictures too, but I was not sure that I was ready to become a member yet - which you need to be in order to access the profiles.

About.com has an interesting article on their tattoo site saying that tattoo advertising "insults" the tattoo trade (here). How the heck did I miss this whole new and innovative way of marketing.

Wonder about pricing? ...a quick Google search found another article with some prices (here). This guy got $510 to permanently engrave "Save Martha! It's a good thing. SaveMartha.com" (Martha Stewart), and $500 for engraving "pilldaddy.com" on his arm.

I'd love to see an insider pricing sheet - that must be pretty complicated. I guess that the increased real estate which I gained in the last 15 years would not result in a higher revenue potential than if I did not gain that. And if someone lives in a warm place, that probably brings up the price. And I bet you that single people get more than married ones...all not fair.

On the positive site, this new trend has to have a positive impact on the thong industry - maybe time to buy some stocks!

[Technorati Tags: advertising tattoo marketing]

May 17, 2005

Blogging for dollars

Guerrilla News Network reports that USWeb is paying people to leave favorable comments about certain companies on their blogs (here - via problogger). Reminds me of those shops that would post for dollars in online user groups and Usenet newsgroups in the mid to late 90's. Funny how these business models have a way of coming back...it also goes back to my posting yesterday - what "trust" mechanism will help the consumer filter what's paid advertising and what is not?

[Technorati Tags: trust blog consumer]

May 5, 2005

Forrester predicts US online marketing to hit $26B by 2010

Charlene Li over at Forrester just (ok…it’s been a few days now…this is not a news site!) released her US Online Advertising And Marketing Forecast (here). I am not going to rehash the whole announcement, but there are some interesting tidbits in there.

"Survey Finds That 84 Percent Of Marketers Plan To Increase US Online Ad Budgets In 2005."

Those are not new budgets, mind you – they are monies that will get reallocated from other sources!

“New advertising channels will draw interest and spending from marketers. Sixty-four percent of respondents are interested in advertising on blogs, 57 percent through RSS and 52 percent on mobile devices, including phones and PDAs.”

While search in going to continue to be important - it's not just about search.

[Technorati Tags: advertising marketing forrester charlene li]

April 13, 2005

Follow up on viral ads

Marketing Sherpa just posted a showcase of the 12 best viral ads on their site (free to view for 10 days - here). This is a follow up post to this previous posting on viral ads.

[Technorati tags: ads viral marketingsherpa]

April 8, 2005

Viral ads anyone? How about "parasite marketing"?

Marketing Sherpa has a new study on Viral ads (free here – requires subscription after April 15th). They distinguish viral ads as different from “buzz marketing”, “evangelism marketing” and “influencer’s marketing”. The article quotes:

Campaigns may raise sales or otherwise help your brand as a byproduct. But, the main focus of the campaign is on the creative -- the thing that's so neat-o that people feel compelled to spread the word. They can't help themselves (just like sneezing when you pass a virus around...)

Makes me wonder why anyone would do this kind of marketing…if the purpose is not in affecting the brand or generate revenue…why would you do that? Geez – give me “parasite marketing” that delivers real $$ any day!

In all fairness, the article does point out that there are huge ROI’s to be had if done properly. It also lists a few interesting facts that we should remember as marketers.

Don’t feel like all your advertising (all communications really) should be brand-centric. People are tired of ads. Have your brand be the sponsor of something that interests your audience. It’s all about putting your audience in the center…not your company or product!

You should always try to see if you can reach the most innermost drivers of your audience – fear, greed and entertainment.

But then the article quotes Justin Kirby, co-founder Viral & Buzz Marketing Association (another new marketing association I never heard of):

"The reason you focus on the creative agents is because the product normally doesn’t have an uniqueness that can be leveraged to amplify and accelerate word of mouth. So you make the creative agent/communications sticky because the product isn't necessarily."

Now I am not sure that I buy that. If your product does not have enough uniqueness (as in…there are not enough compelling arguments why your prospect should look at your product), I fail to see how you will overcome that with a whiz-bang ad. You should probably think through your positioning first before you send out a viral ad.

Here are a few other interesting tips, surprises, and lessons learned from the article:

asking people to forward the mail gives better results than just having a forward button

the use of games and quizzes is especially popular with…adult women (wow…that reminded me of another stat I heard when I was working for a company focused on the hotel industry – traveling adult women are also the highest consumer of on-demand porn in hotels (not my research...))

Use of microsites is expensive and not necessarily effective...

Every so often, Marketing Sherpa has real good articles. Sometimes I wish that they would keep their content up there longer (like they had an awesome case study on what works and what does not work at VistaPrint awhile back), but that is no longer available. I do understand that they need to make money.
I also wish that they would have an rss feed to syndicate instead of plain old email subscription (and for full discosure, I am involved with BlogBride, and rss aggregator - so I know I am biased when it comes down to how I want my news delivered...)

[Categories: ads viral marketing marketingsherpa]

Emergence Marketing

Thoughts on marketing, innovation, social networking, new products and the impact of technology on all those thingies

About

Upcoming Events

Recognition

Entries From the Corante Marketing Hub

Recent Entries

Recent Comments

Categories

Archives

Syndicate

Linking here

Recent Visitors

Copyright

Search

email subscribe

del.icio.us links

other interesting links