Archive for the 'advertising' Category

Light writing

Published
by
Rick
on May 17, 2008
in advertising and inspiration
.

Came across this article which led me to these guys: Lichtfaktor.

Lichtfaktor have created a “Hungry Catepillar” animation for Blue Peter:

More of their work can be found here, here and here.

To make your own follow some basics:

Use a tripod.
Set the exposure to around 10-30 sec. or longer.
Do your writing.
Set the camera’s ISO to 100 so as not to over expose.
Close your aperture as much as possible.
If there is still too much light you might have to use a nd-filter.

…and experiment…:)

How long before the agencies come knocking on their door for an ad…? Or worse still nick the idea and do it themselves?

Case Study: Vauxhall Corsa sponsored indoor festival

Published
by
Rick
on March 4, 2008
in advertising
.


Bandstand Events

Vauxhall has partnered with the Bestival crew and organised 2 indoor festival events in the first 2 weeks of May.

“Corsa presents Bandstand steered by Bestival” - one in Liverpool and the other in London on the 10th and 3rd of May.

The website, www.bandstandevents.co.uk is a typical Bestival production, but down in the bottom right hand corner of the homepage is a ’secret area’ of the site which links through to The C’Mons hiding in the base of a tree. If you click through from there you get to www.thecmons.co.uk, a viral site built by Vauxhall to promote the characters we’ve all seen in the recent Corsa TV ad.

The whole sponsorship of the indoor festival impressed me with it’s subtlety.

Tags: , ,

Nike Plus challenge widget

Published
by
Rick
on February 26, 2008
in advertising
.

The difference between a widget and an application

Published
by
Rick
on February 20, 2008
in Social Media, advertising and application
.

The previous post got me thinking of another outcome due to the differing functionalities of the two platforms. The concept of what a widget is and what an application is becomes clearer:

  1. 2nd generation widgety microsites in widgety-sized living spaces
  2. engaging and useful applications which make use of your digital web of friends.

    This second type of application can be split into another couple of sub categories:

  1. Utility apps - Training regimes (Nike+) and or niche digital organisers, a bit like ‘calender’ on Steriods which benefit aspects of your real life.
  2. Games - Engaging multiplayer, multi-platform, geo-positioned, haptics-enabled bundles of fun to be shared with friends and family. Where you can put the age old disciplines of human competitiveness, cooperation and comparison to the test. And before you ask, yes, “Compare”, “Crush” and “Growing Gifts” are all games.

The most successful of these will create an experience which offers both usefulness and enjoyment. Nike+ is sure to fare well, but who says there won’t be other Nike applications in the future? How difficult would it be to imagine an entire suite of specialist applications all created by Nike and sitting on your desktop…

As Nokia demonstrated at the Games Developers Conference this week, along with rumours of a partnership between Apple and games company Gameloft, we shouldn’t think that the internet is the only place, or the best suited, to socially interact.

knickers

Published
by
Rick
on February 20, 2008
in advertising
.
TopShop sells 30 pairs of knickers a minute…35,000 pairs of shoes every minute and 6,000 pairs of jeans a day.

via Ruby Pseudo

AKQA named Digital Agency of the Year in AdWeek

Published
by
Rick
on February 19, 2008
in advertising and akqa
.

akqa

AKQA #1 Agency of the Year

AKQA makes Fast company’s top 50 most innovative companies

Published
by
Rick
on February 19, 2008
in advertising and akqa
.

AgencySpy reports AKQA is 48th most innovative company globally, with Google in pole position followed by Apple.

From the website:

#48 AKQA

Most interactive-ad shops master either the creative or the technical; AKQA is expert at both. Whether building a Pixar-quality interactive online universe for Coke’s breathtaking “Happiness Factory” campaign (below), or masterminding a multimedia “alternate reality game” for Microsoft’s Halo 3, the digital powerhouse doesn’t just dream up mind-bending ideas, it actually writes the code that brings them to life. Which is why, after five consecutive years of profitability, AKQA is one of the most dangerous global forces in the ad industry. While ad holding companies and tech firms spent billions in 2007 to snap up digital shops, AKQA fended them off, opting instead for a $250 million investment from private-equity firm General Atlantic. In the meantime, the 700-person agency boosted revenues 39% to $100 million and added new clients such as Unilever, DoubleClick, and Cadbury Schweppes — on top of existing accounts with Nike and McDonald’s.

- Fast company blog

More about AKQA can be found here.

google announces launch of gadget ads

Published
by
Rick
on September 19, 2007
in Google, advertising and application
.

Google has been running a private beta to a select number of advertisers since May. Today they announced the limited launch of Google Gadget Ads, a new interactive ad format that will run on their content network. Unlike Google AdWords’ existing array of text, video and graphical ads, Google Gadget Ads are designed to be interactive, can be built using HTML or Flash, and support both cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-impression (CPM) pricing models (more specs here).

Designed to act more like content than a typical ad, they run on the Google™ content network, competing alongside text, image and video ads for placement.

They support both cost-per-click and cost-per-impression pricing models, and offer a variety of contextual, site, geographic and demographic targeting options to ensure the ads reach relevant users with precision and scale.

Gadget ads are also built on an open platform, allowing anybody from individual advertisers to agencies to set up and run ads on the Google content network, the world’s largest global online ad network. Plus, gadget ads will not command any serving or hosting costs.

Feedback from preliminary beta participants, including brand advertisers such as Pepsi-Cola North America’s Sierra Mist, Intel, Honda, Six Flags and Paramount Vantage, has been overwhelmingly positive.

Here’s the rundown on Google Gadget Ads:

  • The ads are interactive
  • They can be both HTML and Flash based
  • Google Gadget Ads can incorporate real-time data feeds
  • Different targeting options - contextual, site, geographic, and demographic
  • Built on an open platform - open to anyone
  • They can be placed on any web page, including iGoogle
  • Detailed interaction reports - track dozens of actions within each ad unit

Here’s an example from Honda:
honda_google_gadget
and here are the specifics of the campaign.
(More Google Gadget Ads examples here)

via Marketing Pilgrim

facebook: flyer pro

Published
by
Rick
on September 17, 2007
in advertising and facebook
.

Facebook has introduced a new ‘flyer’ advertising service on its platform

The new Flyer Pro offers much more targeted potential to the advertiser and is an excellent and cost effective way to drive people from specific networks and with specific interests to that advertisers product.

Facebook’s targeted ads

Published
by
Rick
on August 31, 2007
in Google, Social Media, Social Networking, advertising and facebook
.

Facebook can segment some ads by gender and city, not even Google Ad Sense can be this accurate. Mashable wonders if this is clever or evil? I say clever, and if deployed correctly, the ads may be more relevant to the user –and less disruptive. Imagine if ads became so intelligently contextual that they are as valuable as news items on a feedreader.

Thanks to Jeremiah Owyang

On a side note, threebillion* released a video of some stats they’ve pieced together:

“32% of British 11-20 year olds said they would be happy to recieve advertising messages to their mobiles…71% said they would be happy to recieve advertising messages targeted to their particular interests”.

*3 billion is the size of the world’s population under 25yrs