Advertising Done Right: Archer Promotes New Season On Reddit GoneWild
from the pics-or-gtfo dept
Let's say you're part of the team that puts together one of the funniest shows on television, Archer, known most for its sharp and offensive wit served with a dash of the brazen and racy. Let's also say that you're looking for a way to promote the new fifth season of the show in a way that will both grab some attention and deal directly with a group that is sharply in line with your core demographic. And, finally, let's say you're the type of person who understands that advertising is content. So, what do you do?
Well, you jump onto Reddit's GoneWild board, known as the place where Reddit exhibitionists can expose their lack of wears (get it?), and you start posting as each of the characters of the show in the buff.
Sadly, they're just ads drawn up in the familiar gonewild style (complete with disingenuously coy headline and cheesily sexual handle), but as one Redditor points out, it's "still pretty cool way to directly target their demographic."
If you're a fan of the show, you will recognize the characters, scenes in the pictures, and the references in each post. If you don't know the show, you're probably thinking, "What the hell is this insane nonsense? Maybe I should check it out!" What with the lack of captive audiences and all the different forms of entertainment competing for our time, producers might feel as though they were in some kind of Kenny Loggins song. They have to come up with new ways to literally...figuratively snatch our eyeballs. Fun little interactions and nods towards fans like this are part of that way.
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Filed Under: advertising, advertising is content, archer, content is advertising, gone wild
Companies: reddit
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Did FX pay you to advertise Archer here?
Because if so...man, their budget must be worse than ISIS.
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Sure, they're a little fanatical at times, but when you look at some of the stuff they find and you realize how small an investment it is for companies to act blatantly or deceitfully in popular non-commercial settings, it makes me think they're right at least a little bit more than I'm comfortable with.
I wonder about the rules (written or unwritten) about this sort of thing, and whether it's a good idea to celebrate blatant advertising.
Is it OK for FX to do some blatant advertising in a space where that's generally not welcome, just because it's mildly clever or fanservicey to the community in which they're posting? If it's OK for them, why isn't it OK for every porn site in the San Fernando Valley to start blatantly advertising on /r/gonewild? I'm sure they could come up with some way to wrap the advertising in a Bad Luck Brian meme or something to meet the cleverness/fanservice threshold.
I guess we should just let the tyranny of the majority rule - it's OK for you to break the rules if you're well-liked, but prepare for vilification if you're not.
I mean, that's basically why piracy is OK, right?
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There's a question as to whether that's "OK" in the sense that they will get away with it, vs. whether that's "OK" in the sense that "this is something good that should be encouraged" (with corporate-fellating headlines like "Advertising Done Right"). I agree that it is OK in the former sense, I'm not really happy about the latter sense.
We should just give In-N-Out and Apple free reign to advertise just about anywhere because they are "cool" and everybody loves them, while McDonald's and Microsoft should be shunned and relegated to the AdBlocked-sidebar because they are boring and square. That's fair.
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Erm, you never had this. Do you walk around with your eyes closed and ears covered 24/7? If no, then you haven't blocked every form of advertising. You can't look at a group of people without seeing a bunch of logos advertising what they're wearing and carrying.
Maybe you just mean online, but unless you plan to only visit sites that pre-moderate every comment, and only by someone you've personally pre-vetted to ensure they can't be paid to allow advertising, you can't avoid this.
Certainly, this site allows people to advertise their wares either in posts or in the handy URL box provided so long as they're not openly spamming. You'd better avoid this site, as well as any that allow user posting, just in case.
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I don't live in a large city, rarely travel the interstate, so it is very rare I even see a bill board. Yeah, there are places like that still left in the US.
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Thats advertising, too.
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(Unless it got caught in ABP's net, since advertising has gotten so abusive that I block it by default.)
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If you have a business, you advertise, or you get no business. Word of mouth alone is not enough unless you're well-known to begin with or only need one client at a time.
I see nothing wrong with advertising as long as it's not forced on me. And damn it, some of the ads I've seen are hilarious!
This was a clever marketing ploy aimed at people they knew would appreciate it. I say more power to them. I'm just glad it didn't come up on a pop-up that blocked my view of the web page I was reading at the time. Now that's what the blockers are for.
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It's sorta the way marketing people roll. As soon as one finds a nice beach, thousand will join them and pretty soon the beach is no longer nice.
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I loathe ads for cars, loans, dating sites, etc. and use the usual addons to remove them. But when it comes to creative works like movies, TV shows, books, games, etc. I don't really mind seeing creative ads, especially when you can clearly see that the creators know the communities, their quirks and put some thought into it.
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But advertising COULD be great. Imagine having a friend tell you about something you would LOVE to have. When advertising is honest and aimed directly at people who have a use for a product there is nothing wrong with it. This seems to be a step in the right direction, and should be encouraged rather than "harumphed" at.
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That's not really advertising. Remember the "buzz marketing" trend a few years back? It was an attempt at turning this sort of thing into outright advertising (give interested people product and reward them for talking it up to their friends). It turned out to be a terrible, terrible idea that made people suspicious of their friends.
Yes, true, but that is not what the vast majority of advertising is. And even the idea of aiming for people who have a use for the product has gone horribly wrong in the hands of marketers, because they turned that into a reason to spy on everyone.
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