DailyDirt: Ads Are Content… And Should Be Shareable
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Everyone complains about intrusive and annoying ads. If ads were entertaining and enjoyable, people would actually want to watch them. This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone reading Techdirt on a regular basis. Somehow, though, it’s much easier to find ads that are annoying than enjoyable. Here are just a few examples of viral ads that prove that commercials don’t have to be irritating or pushy to convey their marketing message.
- Jean-Claude Van Damme has performed his most epic splits ever for a Volvo ad. But before that, JCVD had a lot of practice doing the splits on film. [url]
- Goldieblox mashes up a Rube Goldberg machine with a Beastie Boys cover to promote its girl-targeted toy that is supposed to expand girls’ toys beyond just dolls and pink accessories. If there’s a formula for a viral ad, it probably should contain some catchy music or a Rube Goldberg contraption. [url]
- One of the most viral online ad campaigns of all time has to be Blendtec’s series of ‘Will it blend?’ videos. Will an iPad blend? Yes, but first they had to cheat a little and bend the iPad in half to make it fit into the blender. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: ads, beastie boys, commercials, girls, jean-claude van damme, marketing, media, rube goldberg, splits, viral videos
Companies: blendtec, goldieblox, volvo
Comments on “DailyDirt: Ads Are Content… And Should Be Shareable”
Ok, that IS an epic split
But just imagine the havoc if one driver sneezed?
I was always partial to the GoDaddy ads and even shared many of them.
LBJ ad
The LBJ campaign ad with the little girl in the meadow counting the petals of a flower – that ad only aired once and never needed to be shown again. Most powerful ad ever. See it once and you will never forget.
~~~~~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkWAhuXtalw
(High Quality) Famous “Daisy” Attack Ad
Oct 26, 2006 – Uploaded by rlcuda
This controversial ad won the presidential campaign for Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964.
Other factors
So, we can suggest that JCVD’s stunt is worth watching… but only once. It has no replayability. That should be a factor against it.
Ads on Hulu, a personal story...
I hate 99.9999% of the ads on Hulu. They are always the same ads, way-over-played, and the fact that I pay to watch ads pisses me off more than the ads themselves. I know Hulu has capabilities of training the ad chooser what ads you don’t wish to see, but that never seems to help anything.
However, one ad that was growing on me was the VPI commercial with the dog driving at the end. It is over-played, and annoying, but I chuckled every time I watched it. So one evening, I joined friends at a restaurant for dinner, and the discussion came up about funny ads. I jumped on youtube, found the ad, and played it for everyone, who chuckled when they saw it and complained about never seeing that ad on television.
I was really surprised the ad was on youtube, but was happy to find it. For those ads that I do find funny, I often share them with others just to get a check on my own humor settings.