Tag: advertising

Omega Coaxial – quite possibly the best commercial of 2013
First, watch this commercial:

Now, please consider that Omega never really touts features or benefits… they don’t even play into lifestyle per se. This is simply an emotional piece tied to the brand’s rich legacy of elegance, luxury, accuracy and provenance.

The commercial pairs an amazing sixty seconds of CGI with an excellent score (Smiling by the British composer Harry Gregson-Williams). And this commercial would score a perfect 100 if it qualified “the most perfect mechanical watch movement in the world” with the phrase “quite possibly”. Without this qualifier, technically Omega is making a statement of opinion; which is okay; but not necessarily substantiated by data (internet folks, please correct me if I’m mistaken). I know, I’m being picky. But I don’t score many commercials anywhere near a 99/100.

What’s even more special about this commercial is that the images relate to the brand’s provenance:
- Sailing (official time piece of America’s Cup)
- Aston Martin (James Bond wears an Omega)
- Cycling (official time piece of the Olympics)
- Moon landing (astronauts landed on the moon wore Omega)
And even from the beginning, you’re able to tell it’s a commercial about a watch, even as you get lost in the magic of the animation.

Well done, Omega.
2012’s Brand Fails brought to you by AdWeek

Here’s a nice round up of “what were you thinking?” moments brought to by the good people at AdWeek.com:

http://www.adweek.com/news-gallery/advertising-branding/20-biggest-brand-fails-2012-146137
Revisiting a great TV commercial

Sometimes the “best” TV commercials don’t require million-dollar budgets. Just great stories.
Truth in Advertising

Quick lesson: if you are doing a video, advertisement or other piece of content and a person would reasonable assume it is a live feed (or current feed), but it actually isn’t… don’t show it, or use a disclaimer.

In other words, if you are showing a video of a blimp’s view of a stadium during a football game, but the footage was filled weeks ago, you need to tell people that. Otherwise, it is a bit untruthful and lacks transparency. You’re basically assuming that your viewers are dumb and don’t care.

Here’s ESPN’s gaffe during a recent broadcast.
Voice Interactivity Changing the PPC Game

Those with Apple iPhone 4s devices may be less inclined to run text searches on Google.com as they grow more comfortable with interfacing with the Siri voice interaction platform. Furthermore, Google voice search and the probably development and maturation of voice interactivity embedded into more and more devices will ultimate force a shift in the way consumers interact with advertising on the internet. One can hardly assume ads will go away. They never have. In fact, with each new technology, ads seem to become even more prolific than on the previous technologies. Consider it sort of the Moore’s Law of paid search advertising.

So what is in store for paid ads if I never visit an actual search engine? Perhaps when I ask for “restaurants near Reston, VA” the system will deliver two sets of results? Or, will the results be intertwined? And if so, how will I know as a consumer which results are sponsored and which are organic? And where to social signals play in all of this? Maybe it’s important to me that three of my friends recommend on restaurant over another, or that one restaurant is offering a half-off coupon?

Advertising is an important aspect of the consumer experience and ultimately underwrites the fact that the internet is essentially free.

Will Apple build its own ad network for Siri usurping Google altogether? That’s a definite probability if not a certainty. Look at iTunes. It’s a complete silo from the internet, controlled fully by Apple.

The voice interactivity is a vast uncharted pioneer town ripe for entrepreneurs and bright ideas to move in and conquer.

Just what will be next for consumers and advertisers alike? Ask Siri, maybe she knows.
Benetton Ads Fail Marketing 101

Falsified image of the US President created by Benetton

A new ad campaign by Benetton features the unauthorized use of images of political figures. Additionally, the images have been doctored to make it appear is if the figures are kissing.

This ad campaign really tests basic marketing 101 principles regarding moral and ethical obligation and demonstrates a basic lack of understanding with regards to truth in advertising.

First, it is well established that one must have permission to use an image for a commercial campaign and the White House has a very explicit policy forbidding the use of the President’s image for commercial purposes.

It has since voiced its opinion on this campaign.

Second, the images are not real, they are edited/altered/doctored. This might be acceptable if this was stated in the image, but it is not. Because the images are doctored in a material way (versus simply airbrushing a skin blemish), I believe these ads violate the principle of “truth in advertising”. I understand they may not violate this legally, as the ads are not making a promise.

All in all, it is clear that Benetton is simply making a gamble that the debate over these ads and the press resulting from such a debate is worth violating common decency and ethics. This is not the first time the company has been controversial for the sake of attention, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

I suppose being stupid is their substitution for being creative.
QR Code Adoption: Is it an issue of Trust

Mobile Commerce recently published an article showing that adoption of QR codes by students is lacking (especially compared to other areas of the world such as Asia).

Could this be due to trust issues? Is it possible that young students don’t particularly trust advertising? Rather than save time by scanning a code to pull up a page who’s content they are not aware, students would rather control the conversation and type in the URL manually.
Facebook Ads: Landing Page or Facebook Page – Which is Better?

Facebook is drawing in new advertisers each data from the paid search world. However, the principles that apply to advertising in paid search (and even display) do not necessarily apply to Facebook. There are many differences including the size and type of images that work well, the type of copy that produces results, targeting, and perhaps most importantly, the type of ad.

In this post I will briefly highlight two types of ads new advertisers will immediately be forced to chose from: ads that go to your off-site landing page and ads that encourage people to “like” your Facebook page, delivering them to your Facebook page.

Facebook Advertising: Ads with Like Buttons & Ads Without

MarketingProfs just published an articlediscussing a large comScore Facebook study that definitely proves that the 2nd type of ads (the ones with the like button) will, in most all cases, outperform ads that take users off of Facebook.

Here’s why:

When someone “likes” your advertisement, that activity shows up in their newsfeed. The comScore study shows that Facebook users spend a large amount of time reading news feeds, so your friends will see the like activity related to the activities you perform. This is profound because the average Facebook user has between 100 and 200 friends. So, for every “like” you get, you get (FOR FREE!) as many as an additional 100-200 brand impressions (and potential free likes if those users then chose to engage with your brand from the feed).

However, if you are driving users to your Facebook page, there are some things you need to keep in mind:

1. You should have a custom welcome tab that explains who you are, provides a call to action, and contains other relevant information. This will be your first chance to convert a like into a customer.

2. You need a strong, vibrant and engaged community. This starts with good community managers who engage the fans with meaningful content, polls, discussions, and offers (if relevant).

3. A social media policy that covers the management and moderation of your community to address negative issues, customer service, and so on.