Pinterest isn’t just about sharing wedding decoration ideas and food photos. It’s also a way for advertisers to push their “Promoted Pin” ads on users, and apparently it’s been successful at doing that, as Pinterest is promising to roll out this advertising option to everyone in the coming year. [More]
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New Kmart Ad Encourages Shoppers To Spend Least Amount Of Time Possible In Store
By 12.11.14
The secret to successfully shopping at Kmart is to spend as little time inside a Kmart as you can. We think that’s the message of a new Kmart commercial, which portrays the best shopping trip to Kmart as one in which you spend approximately three seconds in the store: long enough to grab your online order, but not long enough to notice the broken floor tiles. [More]
This Deliberately Transparent Swedish Bank Commercial Is Highly Amusing
By 12.3.14
While we certainly know when big companies are trying their hardest to be funny, that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable when one of them actually succeeds. In this case, it’s the Swedes who have nailed it, in a new deliberately transparent ad for a bank that in turn, promises transparent services. [More]
Expect To See More Ads Pretending To Be Editorial Content
By 11.21.14
At the same time as Google is looking to give some sites a way to make money by not running ads, advertisers are ramping up their spending on ads that look like editorial content and can’t be avoided with any ad-blocking plugin. [More]
The Who Remix Old Songs To Fit Into New Ads
By 11.18.14
Using hit songs to sell shoes, food, insurance, cars, and many other items is nothing new, but because those tunes don’t always fit precisely into the super-tight confines of a 30-second TV ad, the songs are often either butchered by editors or re-recorded specifically for the commercial. In an effort to make their music more easily shoehorned into ads and other media, The Who has remixed more than a dozen classic songs. [More]
Why You Shouldn’t Get A Reverse Mortgage Just Because Fred Thompson Tells You To
By 11.13.14
Turn on the TV and you’re just about guaranteed to come face-to-face with a celebrity or public figure selling a product or service. While those spokespeople may carry an air of respect and trust with consumers, what happens when the product they so happily lent their voice to turns out to have devastating affects on the consumer? Not much really, but it might be time for that to change. [More]
Internet Enjoyed A Couple Of Glorious Ad-Free Hours After Google Outage
By 11.12.14
For a few hours this morning, you might have noticed that some of your favorite sites were serving up fewer ads — or in some cases no ads at all. No, it’s not because you’re special (though you are, honestly) or because these sites decided to give you a break from slamming your senses with advertising; it was all due to an outage of Google’s ad server. [More]
McDonald’s Trademarks Slogans That Are Even Worse Than “Lovin’ Beats Hatin'”
By 11.3.14
Late last week it was reported that McDonald’s would launch a marketing campaign in January with the phrase “Lovin’ Beats Hatin'” at its center, but the reality of what the burger behemoth actually trademarked makes those three words sound almost authentic by comparison. [More]
‘The Daily Show’ Rewrites Koch Industries Commercial That Runs During Show
By 10.30.14
Observant viewers of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” may have noticed that the Comedy Central program has a new advertiser. No, not a video game or even a new flavor of Bud Light: a family-owned outfit out of Kansas is buying ad time during the influential comedy-news program. That company: Koch Industries. [More]
Who Has It Worse: Victims Of This Scary “Living” Poster, Or The Guy Stuck Inside?
By 10.30.14
If you want a viral advertising gimmick, there are few more reliable methods than just scaring the fecal matter out of innocent people. But after looking at this video about one amusement park’s terrifying “living” poster, we’re not sure if we feel worse for the people who soil their jeans from fright or the poor guy who is stuck inside the poster all day. [More]
YouTube Planning To Let You Pay To Avoid Ads
By 10.28.14
Sick of sitting through ads on YouTube just to watch a few seconds of a video clip? The Google-owned service is reportedly readying a version that lets users avoid all the advertising if they’re willing to pay for the convenience. [More]
Google Fights Piracy (And Makes A Buck) With Ads For Legal Downloads In Search Results
By 10.20.14
Have you been wanting to catch up on Game of Thrones but don’t have HBO (or a friend who will share her HBO Go login info)? People who search for things like “Game of Thrones Download” on Google are now being greeted by ads from services offering legal ways to pay for the content you’re after. [More]
Colin Kaepernick Fined $10K For Wearing The Wrong Headphones
By 10.10.14
As we mentioned earlier this week, the NFL has banned players from wearing any non-Bose headphones on the field, in the locker room or while talking to the press after the game. Which is why San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick is being hit with a $10,000 fine for sporting a pair of the Beats headphones (that he gets paid a lot more than ten grand to endorse). [More]
Creepy Mall Billboard Watches You, Wants To Play Board Games
By 10.9.14
I find life-size video screen ads with images of people really unnerving, and that was before I came to realize that they could be watching me back. Toy company Mattel, out to promote its board games before the holidays, created a cool event that brought random shoppers and an actor in a remote location together…to play board games. [More]
To The Extent That Obvious Attempts At Viral Advertising Can Be Art, This Is It
By 9.30.14
While I am not one to wax on about lightbulbs, I do desperately adore actor Jeff Goldblum. So sure, this ad by GE for its lightbulbs is definitely a blatant attempt to “go viral,” as the people who think they sound hip say, but it’s also utterly weird and great. And also Jeff Goldblum. [More]
Viagra Airing TV Ads Targeted At Women For The First Time
By 9.30.14
While Viagra is a medication taken for men, they’re not the only ones who could benefit from its use. The makers of the erectile dysfunction treatment have figured out that women are a valuable marketing asset, what with being half of a man-woman horizontal tango, and as such, have started aiming ads at the female of the species for the first time ever. [More]
Facebook’s New Ad Service Lets Advertisers Get Up Close And Personal Everywhere You Are
By 9.29.14
Facebook ads: we’ve all seen a million of them. While some are generic spam, many are very creepily on-target. Until now, Facebook has mostly used its massive hoard of detailed user data for itself, and to sell ads on its own site. But now the site you love to hate is finding a new way to bank on your favorite bands and brands, with a new advertising service that can let companies chase down and advertise to any specific group they want. [More]
You Could Buy 5 Tricked-Out Teslas For the Price Of One Sunday Night Football Ad
By 9.25.14
Are you thinking about advertising your business on prime-time network TV? It might be a good investment, but for the price of just a single ad on one show, you could treat yourself to a very expensive, maxed-out electric vehicle. [More]
