This week’s Global Tour is all about smart digital media placement – from banner ads that shun poorly recreated videos of popular songs on YouTube, to apps that expose inconsiderate parkers by placing information of the car’s whereabouts on websites and social media.
We asked Alice DiGiovanni, digital associate account director, MediaCom, to weigh in on the online banner ads and what she would do differently if given the chance.
Sao Paulo: Volkswagen puts its foot down on imitations
To communicate that its cars are made entirely with original parts, Volkswagen strategically placed banner ads within low-budget video recreations of famous songs. The copy reads: “Don’t accept imitations. Prefer original parts” and when the viewer clicked the digital ad, they were redirected to the song’s original music video.
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DiGiovanni: I think the creative message and placement is brilliant and it’s seamless in that they were able to connect imitation parts to imitation videos. Who would’ve ever thought you would be able to align auto parts with awful music videos? I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when they presented that concept to the client.
I’m actually a bit surprised though that there were no ads placed on the original video once they clicked through from the imitation video. I would assume that they would’ve wanted to continue the communication by placing another ad that will push them to the site to learn more. The buy would be very cost efficient if for every $100 they received 500 clicks, but what does that mean to them? It’s 500 clicks to another music video but I guess it would be interesting to see if their Google searches went up during this campaign because no one was actually being re-directed to the site. Very creative but I think they could’ve bridged a gap after the initial click.
Click here to read the international story.
Russia: The Village exposes parking douchebags
Online city newspaper, The Village, created a “Douche Parking” app that works to shame drivers who have parked horrendously on roads and sidewalks in Russia. When a person finds a car parked in an obstructive way, they can use the app to take an image of the license plate and vehicle (the app will also recognise the car model and colour in the image). The captured data is then streamed to various sites within pop-up ads, targeted to people in the vicinity of the car, that interrupt the visitor and show them the car and location of the poor parking. The person can share the image on their Facebook page to remove the interruptive ad from the site.
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DiGiovanni: Meh! There’s an app for everything. Cute but pretty pointless, which I guess is what makes up three-quarters of the apps that are out there. Yes, you hate the double parkers and you swear under your breath when you see them and sometimes stones are ‘accidentally’ tossed at their car but really what’s there to share? They’re going to share photos after photos of douchebag parkers – you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Unless they had parked their car in a tree, then double parking is really not worth the energy to take a photo of, let alone share with others. At the end of the day, douchebag parkers don’t easily get embarrassed because they’re used to the scornful looks when they go in and out of their car. Personally, I think the developers just wanted to use the word “douche.” On a scale of one to 10 for pointless apps, I give it a nine.
Click here to read the international story.
US: Stride Gum gets clicking with an in-banner game
Stride Gum asked consumers to help set a record for the longest online banner ad by inviting them to click on a button that lay on top of a Stride marketer’s hand for as long as they possibly can. The digital ad for the Stride League of Ridiculously Long-Lasting Records also made efforts to trick viewers to let go of the button with floating videos of cats and babies inside the ad.
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DiGiovanni: I love this creative concept! It’s such a simple game but extremely effective with engagement and brand exposure. I’m not sure what the average time spent on the ad unit was but for someone to be exposed to Stride for 46 minutes and 27 seconds is amazing. I also thought it was really cute that they included shout-outs to cat videos and baby videos – if you’re going to be distracted by something, cats and babies would do it! The one thing I would’ve included is a share button after the game was over to “challenge” your friends and to help create a social loop. It’s a shame that when you’ve completed your game, there’s nothing much more for you to do than play again or move on.
Click here to read the international story.
