Content Is Advertising: Free Local Commercials, Sponsored By Another Company

from the get-yourself-a-home.-or-don't.-i-don't-care. dept

Via Adam Savage, I heard about a fun project that highlights the advertising is content, content is advertising concept in multiple ways. It's a site called ILoveLocalCommercials.com, which features two filmmakers going around the country making (free -- and awesome) TV commercials for local businesses that are nominated on the site. As mentioned, the commercials are really quite impressive, such as the "brutally honest" commercial for Cullman Liquidation ("get yourself a home, or don't, I don't care") or for Ray's Midbell Music that involves a rap about how being in the school band is cool:


The commercials are really entertaining in their own way, and have garnered hundreds of thousands of views -- again, demonstrating how good advertising is content. The guys making the videos also put up a short "behind the scenes" version of each video as well, to explain the backstory a bit more. The backstory on Cullman Liquidation is pretty entertaining as well.

But why are these guys doing this? Well, the whole thing is actually part of a promotion from another company, MicroBilt, that's trying to promote its own line of small business services. So it's paying for the whole thing -- showing how content is advertising. None of the videos are actually about MicroBilt, but in sponsoring the entire site and the whole process, it's helping to get its name out there in a fun (non-intrusive, non-annoying, non-sneaky) manner. It's not about product placement or trying to "sneak" a brand into something. Everything's totally upfront. But it's a fun project, with highly entertaining content that shows both how advertising is content and how content is advertising.

Oh yeah, and it appears that Cullman Liquidation has also picked up on the whole "looooooooooots of t-shirts" concept. On the Cullman Liquidation website, the company is selling t-shirts based on the commercial...
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Filed Under: advertising, commercials, content, local comercials
Companies: cullman liquidation, microbilt, ray's midbell music


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2009 @ 12:10pm

    Yeah, I saw that a few weeks ago. Those guys are hillarious.

    I really liked the furniture store and the "Cuban Gynecologist turned car salesman".

    Hilarious stuff.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2009 @ 12:26pm

    What??? You mean selling loooooooots of T-shirts actually makes money?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    ScaredOfTheMan, 5 Nov 2009 @ 12:51pm

    Love these Guys!

    I never thought of it that way. Excellent observation!

    I religiously watch their commercials and even the making of videos. They were all very entertaining.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Nov 2009 @ 2:42pm

    Sweet!

    I'm from Sioux City!!! I've been to Midbell!!!

    This is awesome, thanks.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    anon, 6 Nov 2009 @ 5:43am

    Yes. But do the ads sell the flipping products?!?!

    Are the companies selling shirts, or their primary product or service?

    It's plain you like the ad. Did the basic business model actually work? Or is it your contention BMW, Proctor & Gamble, and Norfolk Southern, all the way down to the Mom & Pop grocer turn to selling shirt in lieu of their primary product?

    The site is heavy on Star Trek, shoddy on workable revenue and improvements upon old business models. I'd simply like to know whether any of these "examples" produced a resulting sale, comparable or superior to anything else they could have done?

    Selling shirts when your product isn't shirts notwithstanding, but I'd even take that -- if the income was comparable to plain old selling your product the sneaky, "Hey I gotta eat" way of getting the thing the company is actually trying to sell sold.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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