Even though podcasting is still a relatively new and unknown medium eMarketer forecasts that spending on podcast advertising will grow nearly tenfold in the next five years.
To start things out, let me state that I am a huge fan of podcasts. I definitely spend more time listening to podcasts than I do with any other […]
Apple’s “Get A Mac” TV ads have had an intentional second life on the internet. Apple has created a page for them on their web site, and they have also received millions of views on youTube.
Recently Apple has taken this campaign on step further by making an ad that ties together a web site’s online video ad space and banner ad space. The result is far more powerful than just a video ad alone.
This isn’t the first example of synchronizing multiple display ads that I’ve see, but it is definitely the best.
Here is an example of a well crafted and well funded online marketing campaign. That ties together a campaign website, online video, and the most expensive commercial that Guinness has ever produced.
The treasure hunt begins at the Guinness contest website. There you will be challenged to unlock 11 dominoes. Each domino represents a scene from the new Guinness ad.
To unlock the dominoes, you must look for clues hidden in the video clips and visit additional contest websites to find the hidden codes. Once you unlock all 11 dominoes and put the ad together you win a golden domino.
On Tuesday Facebook announced it’s new advertising strategy to the world.
It comes in the form of Social Ads, Facebook Pages, Beacon, Insights, Platform and Polls.
Social Ads - allow marketers to create an ad and target it precisely to the audience they choose. Ads can be displayed in the left hand ad space, as well as in a news feed when attached to a relevant social story. Simply write an ad, choose a target audience, and
decide where you want to drive traffic. Social ads can be purchased based on number of clicks (CPC) or number of impression (CPM).
Facebook Pages - is free, so any business wanting to market themselves on Facebook will start by creating their own Facebook page. Facebook users can become fans of a business and interact with them just as they would their friends. Those interactions become stories that are sent across news feeds and can be seen by a businesses fans and their friends.
18 year old freshman and apple fan Nick Haley created a home made iPod Touch commercial and uploaded it to youTube. He pieced it together from clips he found at apple.com and timed his edited to the fast paced and catchy song “Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex” by CSS.
Imagine his surprise when Apple contacted him, and told him they liked his video and wanted to create a TV commercial based on it. Nick was then flown to LA where he got to work with long time Apple agency TBWA/Chiat/Day on a broadcast quality version of his spot.
Sony’s most recent ad for its line of Bravia LCD TVs is riding high on the viral video charts.
This collaboration between Fallon and Passion Pictures is Sony’s third ad in their “Color Like No Other” campaign.
Chris Willingham Group Account Director at Fallon London said that color “is the most important thing in people’s minds when purchasing a new TV”. Throughout this campaign Sony has forgone any technical or feature based pitch, and focuses solely on color. The beauty of color and the emotions that color can stir up.
Sony has also released making of videos for their bouncing balls, and paint ads, and in the case of Play Doh they released a short making of video as a teaser even before the ad aired.
For those of you who haven’t seen youTube’s overlay ads in action you can experience one about twenty seconds into this Dandelion Weird-Out music video.
There was no embed link with this video, so I didn’t get a chance to see if the overlay ads work when the videos are embedded in web pages or blogs. I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t.
These overlay ads are pretty rare at the moment, and they seem to disappear soon after they appear, so check it out while you have a chance. I posted two images below, one of the overlay ad for the movie Halloween, and one showing the picture in picture movie trailer that plays if you click on the overlay.
With the release of Halo 3 fast approaching, I thought I’d take a look at how Microsoft and Bungee used the internet to promote the third iteration of its most popular title.
Microsoft and Bungee followed a 5 Phase campaign, involving both online and offline marketing. It started with a TV ad that aired during Monday night football called “Starry Nights”.
The commercial was soon uploaded to youTube, and has received 3,781,245 views at the time of this posting.
Google has introduced yet another advertising technology called Google Gadget Ads to its Adwords advertising network.
Google describes Ad Gadgets as a “mini version of your webpage”. A gadget ad is basically a rich media ad that can include data feeds, maps, images, audio, video, Flash, HTML and JavaScript. They can be made to fit within any current Adsense size.
Google will let you choose specific sites to run you Gadget Ad, or you can leave it to Google’s ad targeting to place your ad on relevant web pages.
I imagine it will take a while for these Gadget Ads to catch on with advertisers and publishers because it take a lot more time, money and expertise to create a rich media ad than to create an Adwords text ad. The time will definitely come when Google Image ads, Google Video ads and Google Gadget Ads are a lot more common, but text ads have the advantage, because anyone with a computer and internet access can make one.
Here is 5 part video I found on youTube this weekend called “Behind the scenes: Hollywood Goes Hypercommercial”. It is a critical look at how product placement is affecting movie making.
The video was created by the Media Education Foundation in 2000, so it may feel a little dated, but it is as relevant today as it was 7 years ago.
Product placement has become more prevalent in film and TV since then, not less. And online video is no different. Both professional and user generated content on sites like youTube and Revver are already being used by marketers to display their products.
Sometimes the product placement is transparent and out in the open like when companies post their commercials online, or run contests. But quite often marketers are looking for stealthier ways of integrating their products with popular content.
There are already several companies including Brandframe, WePlace, and InShot that are publicly offering their product placement services to help marketers get their product seen on user generated video sites on a pay per view basis.
Hyudai has just launched a new ad campaign, and instead of featuring its cars it has opted for an honest and somewhat sarcastic approach to marketing itself.
The “Think about it” campaign is challenging people to think about what really makes a good car and to also reflect on how cars are being marketed to them.
The campaign by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners will include online, print, out of home, and TV ads, as well as the web page www.thinkaboutit.com.
If you have a niche product or service that doesn’t get a lot of search traffic, you need to figure out alternative ways to get attention.
Commenting on relevant Blogs and Forums, and participating in social networking groups are all great low cost ways to try and generate interest in your business. But have you ever considered good old fashioned postering as a low cost alternative to generate awareness and Drive traffic to your site? Here is a video created by…
Social Networks are hot right now. This summer, I can’t imagine any one company or brand getting more free PR than Facebook. Reporters are falling all over themselves to find Facebook related stories. I’m sure I’m not the only one who grins every time I hear “Are you on Facebook?”
Social Networks have gone from popular to pop culture, and Facebook, youTube, and mySpace have all entered the general lexicon. With all their success and millions of monthly visitors, the one problem all social networks seem to share is how do we make money? And the answer everyone seems to be coming up with is targeted advertising.
After months of testing youTube has finally rolled out its inVideo ads to the public. 15 seconds into a video, an overlay ad will appear over the bottom 20% of the video. This overlay will be 80% transparent and will animate for up to 10 seconds before disappearing on its own. You will have the option of closing the overlay ad immediately if you want. These overlay ads will contain links that can trigger a video ad. If you choose to watch the video ad, the video you are currently watching will pause, and then the “player-in-player” video ad will begin playing, and disappear once it is finished. Google estimates that 75% of people will watch the full player in player ad.
There has been a lot of buzz over the last couple days about Seth McFarlane (creator of Family Guy), and Raven Symone, (star of the Disney’s That’s So Raven) deciding to use Google Adsense to distribute their original video content. Seth McFarlane is planning on creating 50 animated shorts and Raven Symone is producing a series of short “how-to” videos. The videos will appear in a video box on a targeted webpage that the viewer will have to click to play. Each video will be accompanied by banner advertising and either a pre-roll or post roll video ad. There has not yet been any mention of product placement, or specific brands tied to the project.
Heavy.com has created the Husky Network to market it’s own brand of ad supported video network. It consists of surrounding or wrapping a video player with a large static ad.
Publishers would have a choice of embedding the ad supported video into their web pages, or alternatively having the ad and video open in a pop up or an overlay. Anyone familiar with watching videos on the Heavy.com will already be familiar with the format.
Here’s how it works, an advertiser has a video ad she wants you to see, the magazine publisher has a magazine he wants you to subscribe to, and you want that magazine. This is where AdPerk comes in.
They’ve created a web page where people can watch video ads in return for free or discounted magazine subscriptions. You can earn a free subscription to Popular Mechanics or 50% off Dwell Magazine. It looks like Ode and Alternative Magazine are on board and will be available soon.
Time is running out to enter the latest user generated ad contest. The deadline is August 6th. The top 15 will be voted on by the public starting August 26th. The top 5 will be seen on TV and the winner will receive $57,000. Is the user generated ad just a trend, or is it on its way to becoming a standard advertising practice?
At this point there doesn’t seem to be a lot of online buzz around this campaign unless of course you visit youTube.
MSNBC.com is partnering with Pulse 360’s Publisher’s Vertical Network (PVN), to launch a MSNBC.com Politics and a Today Show advertising network. Both networks will offer a combination of content, advertising and sponsored links.
They are touting this as an alternative to Google’s Adsense for small online publishers that want to increase their revenue and “enhance their webpage”. They are offering a variety of content and advertising formats including; video boxes, stories boxes and sponsored link boxes.
Here is a video of legendary adman David Gunn presenting his favorite print and TV ads at Cannes 2007.
The handheld footage is a little anoying at times, but if you’re a fan of international advertising and you’ve always wanted to visit Cannes for it’s annual advertsing awards conference, here’s your chance for a cheap sneak peak.
MediaWhiz, the company behind Text Link Ads, have purchased Jeremy (Shoemoney) Schoemaker’s majority share in AuctionAds, to fully acquire the company. Jeremy and MediaWhiz launched the website back in March as a partnership.
Microsoft has announced that it as acquired AdENC. AdECN serves as a hub where advertising networks can come together in a neutral, real-time auction marketplace for buying and selling display advertising. It has about 30 employees and is based in California.
A spoof McDonalds commercial featuring a couple guys rapping about Chicken McNuggets has been featured almost unedited in McDonalds latest TV ad. The original video surfaced on youTube over a year ago, and is now being credited with increasing McNugget sales in the New York area where the the ad has been running for the last two weeks.
What more could an advertiser want, a medium with a large highly targeted captive audience with seemingly very accurate viewer and listener data. But why aren’t advertisers flocking to podcasting like they do to so many other new mediums. Podcasters who attract weekly audiences numbering in the tens of thousands still struggle to find advertisers or sponsors if they are not affiliated with large media companies.
The common complaint by many advertisers has been that there is no way to really know if their advertisement has been seen or heard, and they also want the ability to swap out old advertisements from shows once the ads have run their course. To ad to the difficulties, podcasts are as unpredictable in content as they are in length, and the content creators range from seasoned pros to outright amateurs.
To Launch Pirelli’s P Zero Tires, Leo Burnett enlisted Hollywood A-list director Kathryn Bigelow (Strange Days, Point Break) and actress Uma Thurman for the internet only chase film Mission Zero. To start the buzz, they sent promotional kits including a car shaped mouse and branded mousepad to its main clients and invited them to check […]
With the Simpsons Movie release only one week away. Here is a quick round up of their marketing efforts both on and offline. My favorite is Monty Burns takeover of JetBlue’s Blog.
The Official Simpsons Movie Web Site
The Official Simpsons Marketing Partner Site
Xbox Contest
JetBlue Contest
Be an Animated Simpson 7-11 Promotion
List of 7-11s to […]
The Online Publishers Association released a report aimed at educating marketers and ad agencies about consumer reaction to online video advertising. Of the 1422 people interviewed, 80% remember seeing an online video ad.
As a result of viewing online video ads: 31% have checked out the company web page, 22% have searched for information about the […]
This summer mentos is trying out a new viral campaign that revolves around Trevor the Mentos intern. When you visit the site there is a live feed of Trevor sitting at his desk from 9 to 5 answering visitors IM messages and preforming tasks that users have added to his schedule. Trevor also has […]
DigitalTrends is reporting that Google Print Ads is now live.
If you aren’t familiar with Google Print Ads it is Google’s new advertising network that connects advertisers with newspaper publishers.
DigitalTrends said:
Google launched the program back in November in a test run with 50 print newspapers and a small group of advertisers. Now, Google is through the […]
With 2008 just a few months away, it’s time to start thinking about what your goals and strategies are going to be. Here are a few tips and tricks for SEO (okay, I threw a few other tips in there as well).
Optimize for Mobile Phone Traffic
With the iPhone taking the mobile spectrum by storm, […]
ReviewMe launched a new service today called Advertorials. The new service allows advertisers to order blog posts like their current offerings with the difference being the advertiser writes the post. ReviewMe says that Advertorials are an “advertisement written in the form of an objective opinion editorial, and presented in a printed publication usually […]
The common complaint by many advertisers has been that there is no way to really know if their advertisement has been seen or heard, and they also want the ability to swap out old advertisements from shows once the ads have run their course. To ad to the difficulties, podcasts are as unpredictable in content as they are in length, and the content creators range from seasoned pros to outright amateurs.