The original commercial for the Kia Soul wasn’t quite like anything else in car ads. While it was computer-animated and probably not cheap to produce, the full one-minute spot received millions of views on YouTube. Kia’s cute hamsters and clear storyline got everyone’s attention, and that was the company’s goal. [More]
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Burger King Russia Positions Whopper As Substitute For Opium And/Or McDonald’s
By 8.16.13
People are often quipping that fast food has a drug-like quality that keeps customers coming back for more, but the folks at Burger King’s Russian operation are making the connection quite literal, while at the same time apparently poking fun at McDonald’s. [More]
First-Ever TV Commercial Was 10 Seconds Long, Hawked Bulova Watches
By 8.9.13 — Updated: 8.14.14
One Tuesday in July, the Dodgers were playing the Phillies and the game was televised. There’s nothing unusual about that, except that it was July 1, 1941, the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, and only about 4,000 people in New York City even owned televisions. American life and attention spans changed forever during that broadcast, because Bulova paid TV station WNBT $9 to run the very first television ad. [More]
Twitter Users Rebelling Against Promoted Tweets Using Age-Old Tool Of Mockery
By 8.5.13
Now that companies and brands have caught on to the fact that there are a bunch of people on Twitter that they can market to, users are increasingly being targeted by promoted tweets from those businesses. Maybe you don’t mind a few ads touting the benefits of such-and-such product or service, but an entire subculture on Twitter has had it up to here. Those users are turning against companies by turning their very own tweets against them. [More]
Dear Facebook: Please Do Not Start Running Video Ads
By 8.5.13
Ever since Facebook went public in 2012, the pressure has been on for the social networking site (if one considers posting baby photos and Buzzfeed links to be “social networking”) to start leveraging its massive audience for ad revenue. And back when its stock price was around the cost of lunch at a diner, auto-play video ads seemed inevitable. And even after recent upticks in Facebook’s value, it looks like the company wants to drive y’all away with these ads that consumers avoid like the plague. [More]
Learn How To Build An Evil Internet Empire With This 1 Weird Trick!
By 7.31.13
If you’re like most people, you work hard to avoid clicking on the creepy “one weird trick” ads that advertise simple but amazing solutions to weight loss, car insurance, diabetes, small penises, and other modern woes. They wouldn’t be everywhere if they weren’t effective, but who is clicking? What happens when they do click? [More]
Bed Bath And Beyond’s Tricky Nautica Promo E-Mail
By 7.24.13
In a recent mailing that they sent out to customers, Bed, Bath and Beyond promoted two things. They’re pushing Nautica-brand bedding sets, and also their ever-present 20% off one item coupons. The catch, of course, is that you can’t use the coupon on any of the Nautica items. [More]
Some Poor Guy Has To Stand Outside Pizza Hut HQ “Protecting” This Royal Baby Tie-In Offer
By 7.22.13
Sign-twirlers and flyer-distributors in sandwich boards are often viewed as occupying the lowest rung of the advertising ladder. But those guys have nothing on the poor sucker who has to stand outside Pizza Hut HQ in 97 degree weather dressed in faux royal guard garb — all to “protect” some royal baby cash-in promo. [More]
UK Bans Coca-Cola Ad Showing You How To Burn Off Calories From Soda
By 7.22.13
Earlier this year, Coca-Cola began running TV ads here and in the UK showing you all the fun activities you could do to burn off the extra calories you consumed while chugging down a Coke. But regulators overseas have since banned one version of the ad saying it misled viewers into thinking they could work off a can of soda with a lot less exertion than is actually required. [More]
Casino’s “You Can’t Lose” Refund Promotion Is Really Just Meant To Keep You Gambling
By 7.22.13
The casino always wins in the end. If it didn’t, we’d all be rich and casino-owners would be smashing open piggy banks to pay the bills. So when a house of gambling tells customers that it really wants to do something nice and will refund their slot-machine losses, you should expect that there is more to the offer than meets the eye. [More]
Dear Advertisers: Putting Mannequins On Top Of Billboards Is A Bad Idea
By 7.10.13
Following decades of near-constant exposure to billboards, American highway drivers have become so inured to the messages that most of these mammoth ads carry, which is why we understand that some advertisers need to come up with creative ways to draw attention to their billboards. But here’s one clever way that should never have happened in the first place: Perching a mannequin on top of one of these roadside signs. [More]
Ad Agency Realizes IKEA’s Porn-Pun Potential With HotMalm.com
By 7.9.13
If you go to a site with links to supposed videos titled “Twin Blonde Malms,” or “Malm Gets Wood In Every Hole,” you might think you’ve stumbled upon some Swedish porn site. Alas, it’s just the creation of a bored ad agency that saw all the porno potential in playing on IKEA’s Malm model of beds. [More]
Tell AT&T You Don’t Want It Selling Info About Your Wireless And U-Verse Usage
By 7.3.13
Last year, Verizon Wireless ticked off a lot of people when it announced its Precision Market Insights program, which sells supposedly anonymous data about customers’ wireless behavior to marketers. Now AT&T has decided it wants to make money selling this sort of info to third parties, but for both wireless and U-Verse customers. [More]
State AGs To Google: How Much Ad Moolah Do You Make Off Videos Promoting Illicit Activities?
By 7.3.13
Don’t you hate waiting that entire five seconds of a YouTube ad before you can skip to the video promoting use of oxycontin without a prescription or a guide on how to forge a passport? Even if those aren’t the kinds of videos you watch (fingers crossed) the attorneys general for Nebraska and Oklahoma still do not like the fact one bit that Google is allegedly profiting off such advertising. [More]
Facebook To Pull Ads From Pages With “Violent, Graphic Or Sexual Content”
By 6.28.13
A day after Google alerted Blogger users that they could keep publishing explicit content but they won’t be able to profit from it, Facebook has told advertisers that they will no longer need to worry about their ads showing up on pages with content that might get them into hot water by association. [More]
FTC To Search Engines: Do A Better Job Of Labeling Paid Search Results As Ads
By 6.26.13
A decade ago, the Federal Trade Commission told the major Internet search engines that they should be more transparent about search results that received premium placement because the advertiser paid for it. The companies eventually obliged, but the FTC says that search engines have backslid and begun being less-than-transparent again, and that they could still do more to distinguish between ads and organic search results. [More]
Is Brand Perception Tricking Our Brains Into Not Thinking About What We’re Tasting?
By 6.13.13
Most of us have seen hidden-camera tricks where some unwitting subject raves about what they are eating because they have been told it’s a certain brand or from a well-regarded restaurant, only to find out it’s a generic frozen dinner from the supermarket. What if these people aren’t necessarily pretending to like the food? A new study shows that brands may make us so predisposed to an opinion that we don’t use the part of our brain that helps to make such judgements. [More]
Facebook Finally Ditching Those “Sponsored Stories” We All Love So Very Much
By 6.7.13
Remember all that brouhaha over Facebook’s “Sponsored Stories,” the ads that are supposed to be cleverly disguised as simple recommendations from friends? We kind of can’t believe it’s taken this long for Facebook to realize that users are onto their little ruse, but the social network announced yesterday that it’s ditching the ads in favor of a brand new approach toward advertising. [More]
