Who Says Content And Advertising Can't Mix?

from the yet-another-example dept

We've been talking about the fact that content is advertising and advertising is content for a while now, and one of our regular readers, Bill, sent in a neat example of this at work. It's the latest video from the Eepy Bird guys (if you're reading this in a feed reader, you may need to click through to see this): The Eepy Bird guys are, of course, most famous for their Diet Coke + Mentos video which kicked off quite the international phenomenon. One of the less-well-documented aspects was what happened after the video became popular. For a while, neither Coca-Cola nor Mentos was particularly thrilled with the idea of associating themselves with the video. Coca-Cola specifically distanced itself from the phenomenon initially. Mentos took some time, but quickly embraced the phenomenon, agreeing to sponsor future Eepy Bird projects. And, with a little pushing, Coca Cola also came around.

So, now we've got this new video, and it's definitely entertaining. Using hundreds of thousands of Post-It Notes forming paper "slinkies," the video demonstrates that recognition of how advertising and content are becoming one. The video is certainly entertaining and fun to watch -- so it's likely to attract many viewers. However, there's also plenty of advertising built into it as well. First, most obviously, it continues to build up Eepy Bird's reputation for quirky fun video "experiments." But, the video also "debuted" on television on the ABC Family channel as a part of that station's TV show Samurai Girl. So, it was also an advertisement for that show as well as the ABC Family network. On top of that, the video was sponsored by Office Max (who sells Post-It Notes, obviously), but not in a particularly intrusive or annoying manner. And, while it was not overtly sponsored by 3M, you have to imagine that the maker of Post-Its can't be particularly disappointed by the additional publicity. And, oh yeah, the best part is that video also contains a note at the end (not sure if it's an "ad" per se) from... Coca Cola, the very company that had been so hesitant to embrace Eepy Bird.

So, here we have a very entertaining video that doesn't "trick" anyone, isn't intrusive and still helps "advertise" a whole variety of different things without being annoying about it.

Filed Under: ads, advertising is content, content, content is advertising, eepy bird, post-its, samurai girl
Companies: abc, coca cola, mentos, office max