It's truly amazing how easy it is to pull the proverbial wool over people's eyes. Witness these two videos from WorseThanBad.org, a group that aims to hold Shell accountable for spills in Nigeria. Last week, under the guise of promoting the Shell Live With It app, the group released a video that, to date, has received 25,000 views on YouTube and many comments that think the video is promoting a real Shell-branded app.
This week, the group released a second video that pokes fun at the first video's commenters - who believed the video to come from Shell. As they say, this stuff just writes itself.
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Here is a wonderful promotional video for a new book, Winning the Story Wars. The book uses the bomb as a metaphor for a gap that was created between myth and reality. Myth being the stories told that gave meaning to life and that were based on religion and culture. The book discusses how marketers eradicated that gap becoming the new myth makers and how most have failed at the art of story telling.
The book's author, Free Range Studios Founder Jonah Sachs, argues marketers have abused their story telling power by pushing fear, insecurity and greed. But at the same time, Sachs explains how marketers can return to the glory days of story telling and how digital media can help spread empowering stories that instill motivation and aspiration and a positive mindset.
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Always impressive. Always interesting. But we always question just how "real" these videos featuring sports figure doing amazing things really are. The latest comes to us from Cheil USA and features David Beckham playing Beethoven's Ode to Joy by kicking balls at a vertical drum set.
Because this is an ad for the Samsung Galaxy Note, Beckham plans his routine on the phone and then uses it to send his completed feat into the social ether for all to enjoy.
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Heard of the term "big data?" It refers to the massive proliferation of data that, given the proper tools, marketers can use to better formulate marketing programs, media buys, social media programs and even more targeted creative.
This IBM white paper - produced in conjunction with the Interactive Advertising Bureau - will explore four data-driven use cases (audience optimization, channel optimization, advertising yield management, and targeted media buying) that collectively represent the foundation of how many are now seeking to leverage the potential of "big" marketing data.
Download this free white paper and find out how can use "big data" to improve your marketing and advertising.
It seems not a day goes by the Kardashian trio isn't in the news for one thing or another. Lately, though, they've been in advertising news quite a bit with their Sears Kardashin Kollection action. And, really, what's not to love? Khloe has deliciously curvaceous hips. Kim has gigantic, mouthwatering breasts. And Kourtney is just mezmerizingly hot beyond belief. It's enough to make a guy want to...oops...sorry...this is a business site. We keep things in our pants around here.
Anyway, the Kardashian sisters can be seen bursting out of their lingerie in a new ad for their Kollection. Enjoy.
It's funny how quickly things change. When Adrants launched in 2001 and then became a business in 2003, things were still pretty traditional. Banners ruled. DSP stood for digital signal processing (not demand-side publishing). RTB was something Wall Street did. There was no social media. There was no social business. There was no content marketing. And there were certainly no brands producing their own content. Because God forbid the line between advertising and editorial be crossed.
See PayPerPost. We trashed them and CEO Ted Murphy. But times change and what was once unacceptable is now, mostly the norm. We're good friends with Ted Murphy now and, like many other publications, now sell "content sponsorship" deals all the time. Even Adrants, which always prided itself on cutting through the bullshit and keeping the ad industry honest now straddles the line.
Today, that line that used to exist between advertising and editorial is becoming ever more difficult to see. It's not as if "pure" editorial was never before influenced by marketers intent on insuring their message play out in as many places as possible. It's just that the "vetting" that used to exist between marketer and consumer has mostly disappeared.
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