DailyDirt: Ads Gone Wild

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Thu, Jan 12th 2012 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Advertising is a fascinating topic. When ads are done well, the content is usually good enough to stand alone without trying to market a product. Who wouldn't want to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony? But it's not easy to create really great and memorable ads. Maybe it's an ancient Chinese secret, huh?

The science of a viral ad campaign is narrowing down the variables to factors like: congruency, emotive strength, network involvement and paired meme synergy. It's not just about combining a cute cat with a piano anymore. [url]
Prof Jesse Schell envisions a future where video games would encourage consumers to buy stuff and behave a certain way. Would you like to play a game? ~~Thermonuclear War~~ Endless consumption. [url]
Apple's Think Different campaign has a slightly different genesis story than the one from the Steve Jobs biography. Apparently, the slogan was related to "Think IBM" and was conceived by Craig Tanimoto...? [url]
To discover more interesting advertising-related content, check out what's floating around on StumbleUpon. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Filed Under: advertising, craig tanimoto, jesse schell, memes, steve jobs, video games, viral ads
Companies: apple, calgon, coca-cola, ibm

4 Comments

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saulgoode (profile), 12 Jan 2012 @ 5:20pm

I may be veering a bit from the gist of this article, however, it is my belief that politicians have not yet recognized this "free advertising" nature of the Internet -- e.g., while Barack Obama may have garnered $10 million dollars in contributions from "Hollywood", how significant will that ultimately be if it incurs the wrath of the web a la "the Streisand effect"? Maybe we aren't there yet, but (hopefully) will be soon.
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Michael Ho (profile), 12 Jan 2012 @ 6:01pm

Re:
I think politicians have mentally calculated the value of "free advertising" and have deemed it to be far less reliable than "traditional advertising"....

if you were going to bet your career on "free advertising" vs the regular kind, which would you pick?
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 12 Jan 2012 @ 7:41pm

Speaking Of Ads ...
... would you pay to skip them?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2012 @ 7:52pm

"...a future where video games would encourage consumers to buy stuff and act a certain way". THE FUTURE IS NOW!
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