Chris Alexander
27th January, 2010
Yesterday I briefly wrote about the new Renault Twingo TV ads (#2261) that had caught my attention because they appealed to my somewhat childish sense of humour.
Fortunately, I was able to embed 2 examples of these ads for you directly in to my blog post, thanks to the official Renault UK YouTube channel.
It seems that advertising agencies are finally getting wise on how to use the internet to market their products more effectively. Here’s some of the reasons why they’re becoming more successful.
Whether you just put up with it, or you have ad blocking software, or you’re like me and have now tuned yourself out of seeing the ads entirely, display advertising is not the be-all and end-all of marketing online.
Yes it’s good for getting your message in front of people who may be interested, but the top-down advertiser-consumer relationship is terrible for driving traffic and increasing revenues.
Also, some display advertising really lets the team down. I posted a recent TwitPic of an advert on TwitPic (ironically) which really let the side down. For display advertising to work these days, it has to be high-quality, managed, and extremely well targeted.
Of course the best way to get a huge reach online with “little” effort is the “viral” effect - people finding something they like, sharing it, and those people sharing it on; and those sharing it on, and so forth.
It would be a travesty now not to mention Aleksandr Orlov, founder of CompareTheMeerkat.com. He is, of course, a product of a CompareTheMarket.com advertising campaign.
They have really reaped the rewards of that campaign being so popular, so much so that they are producing their own blooper reels for their TV ads. I just couldn’t let this pass without this epic clip:
Another one that I’m not so keen on but went down quite well on the internet is the Evian skating babies ad. They have their own YouTube channel, and it’s thoughts like that which make it so easy for people to share the content with their friends.
Having a character like the meerkat that you can sign up to various social networks is an extremely powerful tool. Aleksandr has his own Facebook and Twitter accounts, both of which are still very active, despite the campaign being run for in the region of a year now.
There is only so much a marketer can do online.
If your content is not up to scratch, or people simply aren’t interested in what you’re offering, then you don’t stand a chance either.
However, if you can hook enticing content, a decent product on the other end, a willingness to put the effort required in, and a good dose of luck, there is no reason why anyone couldn’t create the next viral phenomenon.