DSA Online | New Media Updates

Let’s talk a moment about advertorial.

Usually one turns to advertorial when they have a story to tell. This story, while important to the advertiser, usually is “very corporate” and sometimes original but not unique. All of these things can make a good idea flat by the time it makes it to the consumer. I’m often asked by creative partners or clients what the formula is for a good viral/social campaign and I’m often left telling them that it differs from client to campaign to intended audience. However, if the advertisers is willing to give up a certain amount of ownership and stops looking so closely at the ROI, wonderful things can happen.

One of the major issues with advertorial is that it often looks fake. Even when the pub-set job is masterfully done, most people can still tell advertorial from editorial – especially when the content is technical or corporate. If you consider that the most successful online campaigns tend to be cool and/or informative first, branded second, there might be something that advertorial can learn, both online and offline.

Be Genuine. Be Useful.

I’ve probably said this a million times and if you’re working with me, you’re likely to hear it another few thousand. It’s a golden rule for a reason and your consumers can see right through a lie. So be honest and build trust with the online community. While you’re at it, why not provide your customers with something useful, not just fun or irreverent. You might get a few million clicks from being pass around the popular web, but a useful clip will be passed on to potential customers who could genuinely benefit from your knowledge and product. It’s a win win situation.

Here is a fantastically useful video that makes me want to go out and get new runners. Maybe I should head to Runner’s World and see what else they can teach me?

Credit for finding this gem: Alexander.
Faster posting to the blog: Kathryn. (Winner: ME!)

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Today, Alexander and I attended the IAB Canada Roadshow. You may remember from previous posts my dissatisfaction after having attended the past few roadshows. I’m a big fan of the IAB in Canada and rather than sitting in my office chair grumbling like an old man, I decided to contact them prior to this year’s workshop.  Specifically, I was frustrated with the lack of local content and I was annoyed that some of the advertised topics never made it into the presentation. I was immediately contacted by the IAB Canada president Paula Gignac asking me to be more specific about my concerns. She also pushed back that she believed that the conference was still very much of value and that I was too harsh. I will admit to being a little harsh on the conference as there are still people in the industry that are only interested in “online” in very general sense. At the same time, I wanted to see the conference grow; the industry has changed so much in the past 2 years with new opportunities and more dollars being spent in this medium. I also had been to the Toronto Mixx conference this year, so I saw what the big smoke was getting to see and wanted some of that pizzazz to trickle down into the local presentations. So I continued to push and received a promise that she would ask her presenters and research partners to get a little more focused this year.

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It turns out a lot of people didn’t see Miller’s one-second ad during the Superbowl, and it’s not because they blinked and missed it. As has been the case in previous years, Budweiser is the exclusive alcohol advertiser during the Superbowl, and Miller actually had to buy ad space from individual NBC affiliates airing the game.

So really it wasn’t really a Superbowl ad at all, it was just a commercial that ran during the Superbowl. Does that make sense? Don’t worry, it’s not important. What is important is that while the Budweiser ads have already been long forgotten (something about horses or frogs?), Miller’s ad is still being talked about, even by people who didn’t see the ad during the Superbowl. The idea of the one-second ad was more important then the ad itself. It was covered in the news, and then it was blogged about, commented on, dugg, tweeted*, and found just about anywhere you could look. So was it a success? Miller seems to think so. Oh, and so do I.

Since I’m talking about advertising during Superbowl, I’m going to use this as an excuse to bring up a non-online ad campaign that was absolutely brilliant. Read more