Advertising Lab: future of advertising and advertising technology

Blog on the future of advertising and media technology.

Gamespot's Awards for In-Game Ads Done Wrong

Sunday, December 27, 2009




GameSpot's 2009 "dubious honor" awards for most despicable in-game ad placements, the only award show AdLab faithfully covers every year, are in. Either the Gamespot editors are getting soft, or there isn't a whole lot of interesting (or annoying) ad stuff going on in games this past year.

The winners are Pepsi machines in Bionic Commando. They don't look really all that horrible (but yes, somewhat out of place in an post-apocalyptic world), and it's not even clear if they are product placements at all.

Gamespot writes: "The game doesn't just feature Pepsi machines--it features multiple machines within a few feet of each other. It doesn't seem likely that the people of the near future will need so many carbonated beverages in such a small area. It's also ridiculous how pristine most of these machines look when surrounded by postapocalyptic debris, as if the Pepsi machines of the future were constructed out of an indestructible alloy while the rest of the world burned to the ground."

But Destructoid says the machines are not a paid placement, but a tribute to the brand by the game's developers. Plus, they dispense free drinks if you shoot them just so.

Other interesting nominees:



T-Mobile's Sidekick phone in Tony Hawk Ride, a title Gamespot gave only 3.5 points out of 10. The reviewer hated the entire game, and the Sidekick controls, while not helping, hardly were the $120 game's biggest problem.





iPhone in Mysterious Island 2.This one isn't actually a placement paid by Apple at all; it's a promo for the related puzzle mini-games available in the App Store:

"One moment you're bungling in the jungle with Jep [a monkey sidekick], and the next you're staring at an iPhone that has popped up out of nowhere. You can't use it, either. It just appears on the side of the screen, sticks around for a little bit, then vanishes. This icon actually indicates that you can port a puzzle out of the PC game to solve on the go with your iPhone, although if you don't own Apple's latest must-have device, this comes off as nothing but an out-of-the-blue product placement."

No Comment comment | Subscribe to feed | Read more about ,

The (Augmented) View From My Window

Monday, December 14, 2009



I've always thought windows have a tremendous potential to become an important screen medium, and it looks like the right pieces of technology are slowly coming together. We played around with a few ideas, mostly around windows as AR displays. Here are some of them.

4 comments comment | Subscribe to feed | Read more about

Two Handjobs For the Price of One

Friday, December 11, 2009



Because it's Friday. I wish they had an affiliate program.

1 comments comment | Subscribe to feed | Read more about

Dell's @delloutlet Earns $4.5 Million in Six Months

Thursday, December 10, 2009

It's been widely reported by now that Dell's @delloutlet Twitter account that broadcasts deals on computer equipment has earned the company $6.5 million. The more interesting part, and the one that's overlooked, is that $4.5 million of this money was earned between June and December. In June, the company said the account had brought in just $2M since the its launch two years earlier (or, they say, $2M in outlet items and another $1M in new products, but they don't break down the $6.5M number). Last December, the amount was at $1M.

So, it took Dell 18 months to earn its first Twitter million. Then it took just six months to add another million to that. And the next six months brought in $4.5M.

4 comments comment | Subscribe to feed | Read more about

Twitter Bombs and the Real Time Tweets on Google Results Page

Thursday, December 10, 2009



Oh, wow, pretty impressive. Tweets show up on Google as soon as you hit the "post" button (see the official announcement). I tried searching for a client brand, and sure enough, a scrolling stream of tweets containing the brand name showed up on the first page of results.

Is ranking on the first page that easy now?

How long till the first Twitterbomb -- tricky twittering for the sake of landing (and staying) on the first page for a search term?






1 comments comment | Subscribe to feed | Read more about

Dear Future Astronaut

Wednesday, December 09, 2009



As Virgin Galactic unveiled its spaceship, I reached for an old email I had received from the company five years ago and still keep neatly folded in a folder.

The letter was addressed to "Dear Future Astronaut."  Me, that is.  How cool is that? Not "dear subscriber".  Not "dear first_name, last_name". Not "dear customer".  Future astronaut.

And it was signed not by some "Head of Customer Service" or "Chief of Client Affairs".  No, it was signed by the "Head of Astronaut Liaison".

When you sell someone's dream, you treat the dream with the respect it deserves. You stay in character. Even on an automated form letter.

1 comments comment | Subscribe to feed

10 Tips for Viral Marketers From a Military Propaganda Manual

Monday, December 07, 2009



Do you know that signature line from Henry Jenkins about how if it doesn't spread, it's dead?  Yes, well, this is the "if it doesn't spread, you are dead" kind of thing: a military rumor manual dated 1943, now declassified, and unearthed by a colleague of mine.  Plenty of solid insight for the designers of spreadable media, some already familiar from the books like Made to Stick and Rumor Psychology, written more than half a century after this document. My top ten favorites follow, mostly verbatim.  And I really like how they  use of "design" and "rumor" in the same sentence:


1. Effective rumor design requires special kinds of intelligence on Rumor Targets.

2. The design of a rumor is largely determined by the job it has to do. The slogan-type rumor ("England will fight to the last Frenchman") is especially adapted to summarizing opinions which are already widely accepted.  Narrative-type rumors, on the other hand, aim at introducing information which will create or shape new attitudes.

3. The successful propaganda rumor is self-propelling in a high degree, retains its original content with a minimum of distortion, and confirms to strategic requirements.

4. The form and content of a rumor should be tailor-made for the channel through which it is to be initiated. (The best type of rumor to be spread through diplomatic circles: clever epigrams.) Different channels of rumor initiation and dissemination frequently require different forms and contents for the rumor.

5. A successful rumor must take advantage of the state of mind of the people for whom it is intended.

6. The rumor should be sufficiently brief and simple to survive in memory of successive narrators.

7. The rumor's plot should recapitulate precedents and traditions in the history and folklore of the group.

8. A successful rumor is a function of the momentary interests and circumstances of the group. It provides justification for suppressed fears, hatreds, or desires.

9. Unless most subtly handled, counter-rumors may emphasize and increase the effectiveness of the rumor to be countered.

10. Design different rumors that reveal the same "information".

No Comment comment | Subscribe to feed | Read more about

Friends With Benefits, and Other Data

Thursday, December 03, 2009

I love how Razorfish makes all of the charts from its Feed report available zipped up in one convenient folder -- with all the powerpointage going on, it makes the brand very spreadable. Separately, you have to admire the effort that went into illustrating each of these reports (I already did last year).




On a note unrelated to this post, this graph above pulled from the report by Thought Gadgets is awesome. See how 25.5 is visually larger than 74.5?  If Tufte were dead, he'd roll in his grave.



Some numbers raise questions. Do you include a brand into your consideration set after you've "friended" it, or do you friend it because you are either a customer, or are already interested in the product? Or maybe, as the next graph shows, you are in it just for the price deals, promos and coupons? (The awkwardly phrased questions don't help: "when you follow a brand, does it generally // recommend the brand to others".)




You know these graphs will end up illustrating an argument like this (they did):  "The true power of Facebook lies in what happens AFTER someone becomes a "fan" of your page. A study from eMarketer shows that over 60% fans of a brand usually or always recommend that brand to other people - and 60% of fans usually or always make a purchase from that brand."


Some rain on the pARade (clever, huh): 71.70% of the respondents in the sample (all on broadband) have never tried "an augmented reality experience". (Although, to be fair, some probably have without knowing what it's called.) One other thing people say they haven't done: using tag clouds (59.80% never).

No Comment comment | Subscribe to feed | Read more about

Bantr Replaces Ads with Tweets

Monday, November 30, 2009



Bantr is a Firefox extension that replaces some 300x250 banners with tweets from your friends. The site says the tweets are matched to the context of the page whose ads it's blocking. I didn't really notice, but I am not following thousands of people, so maybe that's why.  It doesn't replace every single unit, just one, and not on all sites, although it does on AdLab.

Wouldn't it be a fun ironic twist if the tweets Bantr displayed were affiliate ad tweets?

Or you can replace banners with art.


- via

3 comments comment | Subscribe to feed | Read more about

10 Advertising Inventions Of The 19th Century

Monday, November 30, 2009



The original tweet ads (!), shoe printers, an improved advertising brick and much, much more in this list of ten new media patented in the 19th century, for the fans of our retromedia series.

No Comment comment | Subscribe to feed | Read more about
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
Related Posts Widget for Blogs by LinkWithin



Test

Advertising Lab is a blog about the future of advertising and advertising technology, launched in 2004. Join over 10,000 20,000 other readers and subscribe to full feed.

Home - Advertise - Subscribe - Contact - About