Aug
10
Colder Than Most People From Toronto
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, digital ooh, humor | 6 Comments
OMG this is hilarious!
Fresh off facebook is an ad from Coors Light in Calgary. Now THIS is contextual, localized advertising at its best!
Fun!
For those from the US, Toronto is viewed, by the rest of the country, similarly to the way NY can be viewed. A little different, but it’s the best way to explain it unless you’ve lived in Canada. Good thing T.O. loves the rest of the country unequivocally 
Now all they have to do is make this digital and I’m a fan!
(O c’mon – it IS pretty funny 
)
[UPDATE - August 18: Seems folks really can't take a joke. The Toronto Star wrote a piece on this a full week after I blogged about it (man print media really is getting super slow in picking up stories). Most of the people I've heard from from T.O. howl at this but it's disappointing that folks can't take a little ribbing and laugh at themselves]
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Jul
16
When Contextual Advertising Goes Wrong…Or Maybe Right?
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, digital ooh, humor | 1 Comment
Depending on whose side of the coin you’re looking at this from, this is either great…or crappy. Toyota must have been chuckling over this one.
Context is very important in advertising and recent studies are showing 10x the returns/ROI when a campaign is more contextually targeted. That being said, I couldn’t help but have a good belly laugh this morning when I saw this story on the Wall Street Journal’s web site, on GMs efforts to retool Buick as a youth brand.
What got me chuckling was the following screen shot
Notice the nice little Youthful Toyota Corolla ad next to the copy? A win for Toyota to be sure and GM didn’t have much control over this but I wouldn’t be too happy as Buick’s brand manager.
Lessons learned in this for future contextual controls in Digital OOH. Brands don’t like this sort of thing and the DOOH industry needs to be active in not letting this type of thing happen to our customers.
Sphere: Related ContentMar
19
Shock value (sound based) ads to be regulated?
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, digital ooh, humor | 2 Comments
I’ve written and spoken about certain TV ads, DOOH ads and other that, quite simply, piss consumers off using various
“shock” based tactics. Well apparently I’m not the only one, as evidenced by this article on Ad Age. California Rep. Anna Eshoo apparently finds them distasteful as well,
So too, apparently, does California state Rep. Anna G. Eshoo, who in June introduced H.R. 6209, otherwise known as the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act. The bill would require the Federal Communications Commission to “prescribe a standard to preclude commercials from being broadcast at louder volumes than the program they accompany.”
In doing so, she has tapped into an issue that often rankles TV viewers: Why do TV ads seem to shout like a ringmaster at the top of his lungs, when the TV shows they interrupt often speak in modulated tones?
Traditional advertising/media folks/mentalities are constantly looking for ways to intrusively force consumers to pay attention to them, using a variety of sensory stimuli – it’s a one-way blaring of messaging that is becoming distasteful. Unfortunately, consumers aren’t really in the mood to hear you yell at them anymore.
Another great line:
“I question that assumption,” said Daniel Howard, a professor of marketing at Southern Methodist University’s Edwin L. Cox School of Business. “Loud ads result in ad irritation, which causes consumers to react strongly and negatively to the brand being advertised. Memory for a brand that consumers consider obnoxious can result in less sales, not more.”
I keep calling it the “warm fuzzy media blanket” effect. Before you can talk to your consumer (and BTW, “talking” is a two way affair), you kinda need to have some form of trust/relationship with them – you don’t get this by yelling at them. Use creative and your environment to make people feel comfortable with your brand, before you try and sell them something. You’d be surprised how much more receptive they are to listening to what you have to say…even if you don’t realize they’re listening.
It boggles the mind how many folks continue to try and use the shock approach, even in Digital OOH (I can name 1 New York based cab network that does it…)
Every time I hear this approach, I keep going back to that Microsoft Video – Bring the love back….re-posted here for your viewing pleasure
Mar
5
ADCENTRICITY Ski day / 2nd Anniversary
Filed Under Corporate, Event, Social Networking, humor | Leave a Comment
OK…so apparently there was a cake so I should stop whining…but I was in Vegas and it went on during ADCENTRICITY’s ski day outing.
Pics can be found here
Sphere: Related ContentFeb
24
The 1 Second Spot is back!
Filed Under Digital Signage, digital ooh, humor, metrics | Leave a Comment
Remember those Miller “1 second ads” I joked about?
Well, they’re back!
According to Ad Age, they generated a fantastic 8.6% lift in sales the week after the superbowl.
Amazing what a little creativity and trying a little less hard to force consumers to watch 30 seconds of garbage does.
From the article:
The contrast between those numbers and the generally incremental gains the brand has been posting in recent months makes it clear that the hubbub surrounding the brewer’s one-second Super Bowl ads drove the surge. Not bad, considering the ads didn’t even run in many large markets — including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles — because NBC directed its owned and operated stations not to run them.
“One of the big things for us [in making the ads] was that we thought we could sell more beer,” said High Life Brand Manager Kevin Oglesby. “We definitely sold more beer.”
Feb
24
Oh how the TV cookie crumbles!
Filed Under Digital Signage, digital ooh, humor, metrics | Leave a Comment
While everyone in DOOH has complained about how strictly we as an industry are held to audience metrics and ratings compared to other mediums at one point in time, it was only a matter of time before “marketers” started to demand greater accountability in who and how many people are actually WATCHING individual ads on other mediums, such as TV.
…
Don’t take this the wrong way but…HA!
You gotta see this article over on Ad Age. Everyone I’ve ever spoken to in media has commented on how they know the rating systems in TV (even the new C3 ratings) are BS but they’re so used to them and the knee-jerk reaction to “Media Buying=TV Buying” that people just go with it. It’s easy to buy…why fix it?
Per the article:
Sphere: Related ContentJan
27
1 Second Ads?
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, digital ooh, humor | 1 Comment
I originally found this on AdRants.
You think we have a problem getting people to think in 15 second increments instead of 30? Try 1 second:
Sphere: Related ContentJul
16
Apparently I’m not the only Gorrie who is a sucker for punishment and enjoys doing his own thing. My father (www.gorrie.com – 122 yrs of retail displays) and my uncle are both 30+ yr entrepreneurs. But it goes further back than that! Wired Magazine had an article on my great, great uncle, Dr John Gorrie. I’ve known about him for a while now (family indoctrination don’tcha know…) but he’s not exactly a household name.
Dr. Gorrie invented the original Ice Machine back in 1850. He’s the reason for the cool frosty mugs-o-beer we all enjoy. Apparently he liked his brew and had a flare for the dramatic too:
He arranged a dramatic demonstration of his machine for a social, rather than medical, occasion. It was a muggy July in Florida. Ice from the North had been exhausted. Gorrie attended an afternoon reception given by the French consul to honor Bastille Day.
The doctor first complained about drinking warm wine in hot weather, then suddenly announced, “On Bastille Day, France gave her citizens what they wanted. [Consul] Rosan gives his guests what they want, cool wines! Even if it demands a miracle!”
Then he signaled for waiters to enter with bottles of sparkling wine on trays of ice. Mechanically made ice in the sweltering Florida summer: It was a sensation. Smithsonian magazine dubbed that party the “chilly reception.”
Unfortunately, he was a miserable businessman so I’m hoping I’ve learned a thing or two since then
So…nothing to do with Digital OOH I’m afraid, but I got a kick out of it.
Funny enough, Ken Goldberg from Real Digital Media called me on this very thing about 3 months ago…apparently, near his town, there’s a statue to good old John’s honor in a town near him.
Sphere: Related ContentJul
11
Entertaining DOOH Content on NY Taxi
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, digital ooh, humor | 2 Comments
As much as we all love talking heads from the news room with “kitchy commentary”, I take so many cabs in NY, I see the same loop over and over again. It gets dull …and I’ve already read my news (the stuff that interested ME) that morning anyway.
So it was nice to see some content that was actually entertaining yesterday evening in the cab! Looks like NY10 got a sponsor (Dave Middleton show and Loopt at http://www.loopt.com/) and they went bonkers with their intro sponsor wheel, which was …maybe 3 minutes long?
Two things I want to call attention to:
1.) I like this content. It was entertaining and at the very least DIFFERENT. Is it really that hard to come up with something other than repurposed and retranscoded wheels from TV? You’ll find the talking heads at the end of the video if that’s your thing. The sponsor also had some social relevance (again, to me) and they had a clear call to action that could be completed RIGHT THEN, via phone. They are, of course, a mobile service.
2.) You will get an idea of what driving in an NYC taxi is like. Sorry for the vertigo. Hey – you try holding the camera steady going 40 around corners with no suspension!
Video:
Sphere: Related ContentMar
23
Blatant Consumer Abuse?
Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, humor | 1 Comment
There’s blatant abuse of consumer attention/captive moments and then there’s REALLY blatant abuse of captive time. A recent Air Canada flight just took the cake for me – note this is just my opinion but read on.
Now, I’ve got to give it to Air Canada, they’ve got a pretty slick little interface set up in their new planes. Great touch screen, responsive, decent content (although they need some more). What they’ve done to make money in between a consumer mindlessly pushing buttons and consuming content is to add customized pre-roll to the front of the content wheel. As a consumer, I expect this. You give me free content, I will watch ads. I haven’t resigned myself to it – I’m actually completely accepting of it….within reason.
When I hear pre-roll, I usually think 1 ad, maybe 2….3 at the most. Specifically to captive networks that aren’t TV, I also expect them to be 15 seconds’ish.
So I was awestruck when I started playing around with their system and found that their TV/Signage Pre-Roll Maxes Over 3 Minutes!
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