Come to your Senses...

This is one of those commercials where I'm not quite sure how it promotes the product, but it made me laugh anyways.

Mile High Advertising

If you flew during this Labor Day weekend, you may have seen a SkyMedia advertisement. The New York based Brand Connections (of which SkyMedia is a subsidiary) has an exclusive license for selling ads on the tops of tray tables. It is truly an ingenious concept. The tops are laminated, for longevity and can still allow space for the in flight beverage holder. According to SkyMedia's website 98% of airline passengers were exposed to the message while 92% of those who used their tray table recalled the advertisement! The company also limits the ads to one advertiser per flight, though I'm sure they charge a premium for the privilege. Where else do you have an audience that is captive for hours at a time?
Fedex, Tylenol, Ford, GM and yes, even Pepto-Bismol have taken their ads to the sky (Just to name a few). I applaud the folks at Brand Connections for reaching high.

Thanks to Search Marketing Communications for the heads up.

Breaking News!

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

Oreo Moments

More and more, companies are asking their customers to become brand advocates. They ask them to tell others why their product is the best. Oreo has just lauched a campaign on YouTube asking everyone with a milk mustache and a chocolatey grin to send in a video (and vote for other videos) on who has the best Oreo Moment. Check out the promo video for yourself!

Habitat-Centric Advertising Pt. 1

Where are your ads living?

Have you ever paid attention to not just how an ad looks, but the environment in which it is viewed? Our lives are packed full of advertising CLUTTER. The more advertisements we see every day, the harder advertisers have to work to make their ad stand out from the rest. This has led to a new breed of ads I've called Habitat-Centric. These ads work WITH their environment for the maximum effect.

It's really a fun type of advertising. It's creative, it's eyecatching, and best of all it's effective. The best examples of Habitat-centric Advertising have the added bonus of becoming viral on the internet. This is due to consumers appreciating the creativity that has gone into the advertisement. The McDonalds Sundial is one example, the Bic ad above is another. Here are a few more of my favorites:

Habitat-Centric advertising can be done on any budget with nearly any medium, and that is what makes it so great. It's all about creativity. I would love the opportunity to work with agencies devoted to habitat-centric advertising. Even if I was simply the go-fer who fetched the coffee for the truly creative gurus ;)

Pos or Not

I was looking for a few new advergames to talk about here (they really have become a phenomena) when I ran across one 'game' that is more serious than most. MTVU has lauched a site called Pos or Not where they encourage you to try to guess who has HIV and who does not. The site is co-sponsored by the Kaiser foundation and it really forces you to look at what stereotypes you may have about HIV.

This site really encourages you to show the site to your friends. It does well with its call to action and does its best to shed light on a terrible disease.

Edible Ads

When you're trying to promote a common service, such as a grocery store, it definitely takes some creativity to stand out from all of the neighborhood corner marts. One Italian company named Esselunga did a great series of ads designed around fruit.

See more in this series of ads over at CrookedBrains.net