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Clever McDonald’s sundial billboard. “The billboard features a real sundial whose shadow falls on a different breakfast item each hour until noon, when the shadow of the McDonald’s arches are dead center.”
Adidas did a Michaelangelo-style fresco of 10 soccer players at the Central Train Station in Cologne. More photos of Adidas’ World Cup advertising.
Speaking of brand genericide, Heroin was actually a brand name trademarked by the Bayer drug company. (thx chris, who joked, “Can I interest you in some Heroin brand morphine substitute?”)
Harris Interactive recently released a list of products ranked by brand equity, a measure of the brand’s popularity with US consumers. Here’s the top 10:
1. Reynolds Wrap Aluminum Foil
2. Ziploc Food Bags
3. Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Candy Bars
4. Kleenex Facial Tissues
5. Clorox Bleach
6. WD-40 Spray Lubricant
7. Heinz Ketchup
8. Ziploc Containers
9. Windex Glass Cleaner
10. Campbell’s Soups
Marketing can be a double-edged sword. The companies who manufacture these products have done a fantastic job in marketing these products, so fantastic in some cases that the brand name is in danger of becoming a genericized trademark. From the list above, I routinely use Ziploc, Kleenex, WD-40, and Windex to refer to the generic versions of those products, even though we sometimes use Glad products instead of Ziploc, Puffs instead of Kleenex, or another glass cleaner instead of Windex. If the companies on this list aren’t careful, they could lose the trademarked products that they’ve worked so hard to market so successfully.
Here’s a list of American proprietary eponyms, or brand names that have fallen into general use. Some of the names on the list are so old or in such common use (escalator, popsicle) that I didn’t even know they had been brands. Two current brands I can think of that might be in danger of genericide: iPod and Google. (via rw)
Design Observer redesigns…looks a bit smarter than before. They joined The Deck too.
An extensive listing of all the promotional merchandise from Pixar/Disney’s Cars. Over 70 licensees will be offering themed merchandise like toy cars, cross stitch kits, books, staplers, shower curtains, sippy cups, and a boatload of Kellogg’s cereals. Holy overload.
New project from Cory Arcangel: Kurt Cobain’s suicide letter with Google AdSense ads (which are automatically generated based on the content of the page). Current ads include ones for free ringtones, techniques to end anxiety, and public speaking training.
Images from a very creative advertising campaign from Amnesty International highlighting scenes of war and torture from around the world. (via plugimi and m. migurski)
The Competitive Enterprise Institute has produced two TV ads critical of the global scientific and political consensus on global warming. “Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life.” CEI is funded in part by energy companies, but I guess they’re not that well funded because that’s some of the most laughable propaganda I’ve ever seen. (thx, kyle)
Media kit for the New Yorker, including an issue calendar, circulation stats, and advertising rates & specifications. Only 4% of their circulation is via the newsstand…that’s a lot lower than I would have expected. Vogue’s newsstand rate is ~36% and Wired’s is ~13%.
Spotted this on my walk to the office this morning:
If you can’t tell, it’s a bus covered with laundry. This had to be an advertisement for something (MTA employees aren’t that eccentric) and after a little poking around online, I found out it’s part of All’s “Spot the Bus” sweepstakes:
From May 15th to 26th, two all small & mighty buses covered in clothes will cruise the streets of New York City. When you see one, send a text message of the time and location to 96787. You’ll be entered in the Spot the Bus Sweepstakes.
If you’d like to take part without actually spotting the bus or even living in NYC (and have a chance at winning $5000), I took the above photo at 10:41am near 14th Street and 10th Ave in Manhattan. Good luck!
Yet more advertising….a paparazzi photo of Lindsey Lohan made its way onto a movie poster promoting a film that starred Lohan.
Advertising/Design Goodness is a blog that tracks the best and worst of advertising from around the world. (thx, cap’n)
More creative advertising fun. Mark Cuban thinks that live TV commercials could save traditional TV. More at Ars Technica. (thx, flip)
Last month, an audience in London was shown a 3-minute performed “commercial” before the actual play started. Inadvertently, today seems to be unique/unusual advertising day on kottke.org.
Current TV is running advertising for Sony that was created by a viewer. “Of course, Sony approved Mr. Ibele’s finished product before it went on the air.”
BannerBlog highlights creative and interesting banner ads from around the web. Today’s ad is pretty darn clever.
Good new series of ads for Apple; “Get a Mac”. I’m pretty sure the chap playing the PC is John Hodgman (author, Daily Show correspondent, This American Life commentator, former literary agent, monthly readings holder, hobo expert). Can anyone confirm? (via df)
Update: According to MacRumors, the Mac is played by Justin Long.
Update #2: Yep, seems to be Hodgman.
Keyword Cartoons chronicles the adventures of GGirl, a character whose daily activities correspond with high-paying keywords on Google AdSense, like laser hair removal and asbestos cancer.
As part of their “simplicity” ad campaign, Philips is paying Time Inc to put the table of contents in some of their magazines on page 1 (the TOC is typically further into the magazine in a more irritating position). It’s funny that there was concern about this type of advertising affecting the layout of the magazine (in the editorial/sales wall sort of way) when the whole idea of pushing the TOC to page 10 or 20 is to accomodate advertising in the first place.
Starting next month, kottke.org will be joining The Deck, a “creative, web + design professionals advertising network” consisting of Waxy.org, 37signals, The Morning News, Coudal Partners, Daring Fireball, A List Apart, and now this site. Here’s the announcement. I am honored for kottke.org to be associated with these fine sites.
Functionally, this means that a small ad (120x90 pixels) accompanied by a bit of text will appear on (nearly) every single page of the site beginning May 1. If you’ve been paying any sort of attention over the past few years, you know I’m not a big fan of advertising and putting ads on kottke.org was almost the last thing on my mind. From the perspective of the reader/viewer, ads are often pushy, irrelevant, redundant, deceitful, insipid, or just plain poorly done. But advertising can also be useful when it communicates clearly, is relevant to its audience, doesn’t attempt to mislead, and lets the product/service in question sell itself. An artfully done advertisement can raise the boats of all concerned: the advertiser sells more products, the reader/viewer is informed of useful or appealing products and services, and the content provider is able to feed and clothe her family.
In the past few years, mechanisms for the delivery of advertising have evolved outside the purview of traditional advertising agencies. Two of the better efforts I’ve seen are Google’s AdSense (simple, straightforward, highly relevant (most of the time anyway)) and small ad networks like The Deck (high quality, considered, relevant). For instance, here’s The Deck’s policy on accepting ads:
We’re picky about the advertising we’ll accept. We won’t take an ad unless we have paid for and/or used the product or service. Sell us something relevant to our audience and we’ll sell you an ad.
That’s a pretty sweet deal for advertisers and readers alike. In the past, I’ve dismissed advertising without experiencing it from the perspective of the content provider. By giving The Deck a go on kottke.org, I hope to gain a better understanding of the issue and fulfill my desire to keep doing kottke.org as a (nearly) full-time endeavor.
There appears to be a bit of a problem with Yahoo’s text ad program: you aren’t allowed to show pages with Yahoo’s ads on them to people outside of the US.
Jonathan Crowe ran an Olympics-themed weblog for Athens 2004 and Torino 2006. Interestingly, the 2004 version got a lot more traffic, but more recent one made him more money via Google AdSense. “Whether [the increase is] due to better ad block positioning, ‘better’ ads (more on-target or more lucrative), a ‘better’ audience, or simply a more mature advertising network, I have no idea.”
Unknown (relatively speaking) indie rock bands are turning down large sums of money from GM for licensing their music for Hummer ads. “It had to be the worst product you could give a song to. It was a really easy decision. How could we go on after soundtracking Hummer? It’s just so evil.” (via rw)
Time-lapse animated GIF of the Million Dollar Homepage…watch it fill up.
The delicate marketing of Brokeback Mountain. In Manhattan for example, analysis of the city’s various social microclimates was used to select the opening theaters to de-emphasize the art-house aspect of the film. (via dj)
Absolut is ditching their famous bottle ads campaign (which is 25 years old) in favor of references to pop culture sans bottle. (via do)
Very high on the list of things that don’t need to be advertised is Tetris. Chances are you remember this Tetris commercial from the 80s anyway. “Use your thumbs, use your eyes, find yourself Tetrisized!”
This blog cites a Target store advertising on Google Maps (by painting their logo on the roof), but it’s more likely that the bullseye is there for the benefit of airline passengers landing at nearby O’Hare (as this slightly wider view shows). (via bb)
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