Try this: An exercise in futility

von | Okt. 12, 2006 | Blog, Digital Marketing, Online Advertising

Joseph Jaffe is asking us to take part in his „exercise in futility“.

He asks us to leisurely watch television and then answer a few apparently easy questions:

  • how many commercials in totality do you think you watched?
  • how many commercials did you remember?
  • of these commercials, how many brands did you remember (as opposed to „the one with the bunnies“
  • of these commercials, how many do you think told you something you didn’t know, offered up something of value, made you think differently about the brand and/or made you want to buy (or consider to buy) that particular brand/product/service
  • Bonus assignment: did any one or more commercials strike you as being particularly original, progressive, innovative in terms of message, call-to-action etc.?

I can see his point. But do take into account: if there was a similar questionnaire about regular online advertising, the result would be similarly bad (or even worse). If I read his book right, then his point is more about the irrelevance of this kind of advertising. Push advertising, unasked for, without any engaging element to it…

Zune on Ellen: Microsoft’s new leaking campaign

von | Sep. 27, 2006 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Marketing

Just found this on Adjab: Zune on Ellen: Microsoft’s new leaking campaign.

Not bad going for Microsoft. With this kind of advertising they might actually invade the iPod space. I guess they had already practised. At least that’s what it looks like in this video, that was supposed to be „internal“ but then hit YouTube nevertheless. (That must have been a well-orchastrated publicity stunt.)

Now they sent the Zune Player (couldn’t they have chosen a better name?) to so called influentiers and opinion leaders, such as Ellen, who presented the player in her TV show.

What I particularly like about the Zune Player, though (without actually having seen one myself – is the landscape display for movies, which probably makes it more fun to watch movies on this thing than on the iPod Video!

But back to my point: it seems like Microsoft might actually get their marketing right this time AND apply it for a good product. These two things were rarely seen before on their own, if at all – and almost never in combination.