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Advertising Done Right: Archer Promotes New Season On Reddit GoneWild

from the pics-or-gtfo dept

Wed, Jan 8th 2014 8:00pm — Timothy Geigner

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

31 Comments

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S. T. Stone, 8 Jan 2014 @ 8:30pm

Techdirt, come clean now.

Did FX pay you to advertise Archer here?

Because if so...man, their budget must be worse than ISIS.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2014 @ 8:46pm

I like the folks from /r/hailcorporate.

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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Just Sayin', 8 Jan 2014 @ 9:05pm

Masnick is a pirate funded by Google. He's going to hide this post for 24 hours so his pirate underlings can make fun of me for headpats.
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eaving (profile), 8 Jan 2014 @ 9:35pm

Re: Blatant Advertising
To me the question of 'is it ok' really comes down to the community and the content. The advertising agency is making a judgement call on whether or not that community will appreciate what they are doing, or if its going to come back and bite them in the ass. Obviously the individual agency may guess wrong in any particular situation, but despite the odd adage of there is no bad press, the trick they played here with Archer will only work in very specific setting for very specific subjects. An attempt for example by a car company to randomly advertise its cars in the comments section everywhere would be more likely to turn people off to their product than to draw them new business.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2014 @ 10:10pm

Re: Re: Blatant Advertising
To me the question of 'is it ok' really comes down to the community and the content.

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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dfed (profile), 8 Jan 2014 @ 10:16pm

Re:
Little known fact: Mike is actually who took over as Pirate King. He set two records (personal): Amount of pirating done online and number of idioms used at once in a post that weren't understood by the buck-toothed little shit who didn't speak english.
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dfed (profile), 8 Jan 2014 @ 10:18pm

Re: Re:
It has been pointed out to me that Bucky does indeed speak english. This will of course hurt morale on the pirate island.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2014 @ 11:22pm

Just when you have every bit of advertising blocked here comes another sneaky way. While I have not been to this particular subreddit, knowing this is there makes sure I'll stay away... a long ways away.
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PaulT (profile), 9 Jan 2014 @ 12:10am

Re:
"Just when you have every bit of advertising blocked"

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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Guy From V, 9 Jan 2014 @ 12:12am

What the hell damn guy?
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dfed (profile), 9 Jan 2014 @ 12:24am

Re:
That's how Techdirt got ants.
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silverscarcat (profile), 9 Jan 2014 @ 1:51am

Re: Re: Re: Blatant Advertising
In and Out is only a small portion of the U.S., try Five Guys, they're in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. with plans to expand to France and Australia. XP
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2014 @ 2:01am

Re: Re: Re:
Oh, where's Truffle when you need him?
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Ninja (profile), 9 Jan 2014 @ 2:04am

Re:
AND LOSE THE BOOBS? ARE YOU INSANE?!?!?!
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Ninja (profile), 9 Jan 2014 @ 2:04am

Re: Re:
I meant "miss the boobs". Damn hormones.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2014 @ 2:12am

Re:
That advertising is not animated, does not have sound, is not a pop-up/pop-under, does not clash garishly with the page colors, and does not try to invade your computer. I would let it pass.

(Unless it got caught in ABP's net, since advertising has gotten so abusive that I block it by default.)
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2014 @ 2:16am

Re: Re:
I am very rarely in crowds. So yes, I do miss that 'advertising'. I don't own a tv, very much on purpose. I can't tell you what peace has come into this house since then. I surf on line without seeing ads. Every once in a great rare occasion, one manages to make it through but only once.

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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Kam, 9 Jan 2014 @ 2:35am

I think the advertising, trying to encourage redditors to watch their show, is only one aspect of these posts on reddit. On the other side, we have content creators directly interacting with their fans (Archer is mentioned/referenced almost everywhere on Reddit) in new, creative and entertaining ways.

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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Ninja (profile), 9 Jan 2014 @ 2:44am

Re: Re:
That. I too block ads by default due to the invasiveness of some and the abuses. The advertisers brought it upon themselves I guess. There are studies showing that we are simply ignoring the great majority of ads that we see (as if we built our own biological abp hahaha)
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2014 @ 5:16am

Re:
What's deceitful about this?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2014 @ 5:18am

Re: Re: Re: Blatant Advertising
You're entire argument seems to be predicated on the assumption that advertising itself is wrong.
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Pragmatic, 9 Jan 2014 @ 6:31am

Re:
What's with the anti-advertising rant, buddy?

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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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2014 @ 7:04am

Re:
Are you aware that all situations are not 100% equal?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2014 @ 7:13am

What? No Woodhouse?!
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John Fenderson (profile), 9 Jan 2014 @ 8:33am

Re: Re:
My fear about this sort of thing is that it will be successful, then other companies will start doing it, then the forum it's happening in will become mostly this sort of thing and not whatever the purpose of the forum is.

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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akp (profile), 9 Jan 2014 @ 9:21am

Re:
3 piece, $6.99!
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2014 @ 2:49pm

Re: Re: Re:
Theres no logos on your cars? You never see other cars?

Thats advertising, too.
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Beech, 9 Jan 2014 @ 6:25pm

It seems like a lot of the people here who are mad about this subscribe to the "all advertising is inherently evil" viewpoint, which is false. Sure, most advertising is pretty evil. Most advertisers are souless husks who do naught but pour daily over the latest market research to try and find a way to soak a few more shillings out of someone's pockets.

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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Pragmatic, 10 Jan 2014 @ 6:45am

Re: Re: Re:
True, but I'd rather have an under-the-radar approach than forced advertising. Remember when they tried to cast ad-blocking as copyright infringement?
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John Fenderson (profile), 10 Jan 2014 @ 9:15am

Re:
Imagine having a friend tell you about something you would LOVE to have.

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.

When advertising is honest and aimed directly at people who have a use for a product there is nothing wrong with it.

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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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jan 2014 @ 12:24am

Re:
horse with no name just hates it when due process is enforced.
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