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Bus Stop Beauties

About a month ago, I made a post about Habitat-centric advertising. It's a style of advertising that I define as creative ads that interact with their environment to stand out in the mind of the consumer. In this post I would like to highlight a few HC ads that work with busses. Busses provide a space for advertising that is mobile. This increases the reach the advertisement could have.


The advertisement above is one of the classic examples of Habitat-centric advertising on a bus. The wheels of the bus make great eyes. The one downside of this use of the wheels is that a large portion of the bus needs to be visible for the whole ad to work. Busses are often in heavy traffic, where a part of the view would be obscured.





This advertisement also uses the wheels of a bus, but a much smaller portion of the buss is used. The wheel becomes the lens of a camera.


This advertisement is probably my favorite for using the outside of a bus creatively. It is an anti-smoking advertisement, built around the tailpipe of the bus. It works best during the winter months, where the air coming out of the tailpipe of the bus would warmer than the outside air, causing it to "smoke". (Hopefully the bus is not putting out enough real smoke for it to work year round).


This final advertisment works great with the handhold on the inside of the bus. Judging by the plane in the background, it was used in a ground transportation bus at an airport. This advertisement for the "Big Pilot's Watch" is a great fit with its environment.



All of these advertisements are creative uses for what is a functional daily item.

Tiger Woods... Walking on Water

Video games often have glitches in them. In fact, there are entire sites dedicated to video game glitches. Some are just annoying, other can actually affect game play. I have never seen a glitch in a game actually turned into a selling point... until now. A great job by EA Sports!

Product Placement - FCC

Product placement has become a major strategy for television advertising. The invention of Tivo's and DVRs and other similar techonologies has placed the power into the hands of the viewer. Don't want to watch a commercial? Just fast forward! So brands have moved to putting their products in the show itself. This is one marketing strategy that I applaud. It makes the show more realistic if done correctly. Notice the disclaimer. Some shows do let it affect the quality of the show itself. There are also a few ethical issues with product placement. The viewer may not always realise that it is a paid advertisement, especially if the show is targeted to a younger demographic.

Haleykish over at Everybody goes to Haleywood highlighted a move by the FCC that could greatly affect product placements in the future.

Possibly coming to televisions across the nation: stronger warnings that the Cokes, Oreos and Sidekicks flaunted by actors have bought their way onto your favorite show.

That’s what the Federal Communications Commission signaled yesterday when it said it would review new rules on how television programmers let viewers know when those “props” are really paid pitches.

FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin said product placements and integration into story lines have increased as television viewers increasingly use recording devices like TiVo and DVRs to fast forward through commercials. Currently, agency’s rules require television programmers to disclose sponsors who have embedded products into shows. Those disclosures typically are done during the credits at the end of the show, which fly by viewers in small script.

“We want to make sure consumers understand and are aware that they are being advertised to,” said Martin, who first pushed to clarify disclosure rules last fall. “We ask how we should update our rules to reflect current trends in the industry.”

I will definitely be watching to see what moves the FCC makes.

Product Placement « “Everybody goes to Haleywood”.

This article also crossposted at http://aheismann.wordpress.com