Flying visit

This morning, I was browsing the news online and came across a link to an interesting feature about unusual ways businesses have innovated. Naturally intrigued, I clicked on the link, patiently waiting the 2-3 seconds it takes for my computer to load a page. However, after my wait, I am not met with my most innovative businesses feature. Instead, my screen turns a transparent blue and I am met with a picture of an animated plane zooming across a page. What is this? I can vaguely make out my article behind it, so I search around the plane, which is now making a chugging sound and omitting several puffs of (hopefully eco-friendly) smoke, for an ‘X’.

No ‘X’ in sight. I try to avoid the plane, thinking that if I click on a blue area behind it, it might disappear. But the plane seems to be one step ahead of me; as I move my mouse, it mirrors my movements. There appears to be no escape from this thing.

What does it even want? Why won’t it go away?

After about a minute of trying to dodge this plane, I finally succumbed to what it obviously wanted me to do – I clicked on it. Perhaps if I did this, it would go away. Within nanoseconds, another webpage appeared. I don’t even know what it was about as I was so annoyed I immediately shut the page. But whoever it was that sent that little plane to harass me perhaps got what they wanted – a click through to their website. Even if it was done just to get rid of that damn plane.

It made me wonder how many unscrupulous websites build up their “unique visitor” numbers through tactics like this. Pop-up ads and links are becoming increasingly common and often they are designed to make you click on them in error (when they keep following your mouse around) rather than creating engaging content that people actually want to read.

I admit I don’t know much about click-through rates and advertising, but I can have a guess that the more unique visitors a website has, the more it can charge companies for advertising space. Perhaps companies with online advertising budgets are already onto this; many of them no doubt have teams trained to source potential ad spaces that will offer a genuine, targeted audience – one where the average website visiting time is more than 0.001 seconds. But for those companies that are choosing an online space for their adverts based on unique visitors alone – beware. 

By Jess Matthias 

The meme takeover

The Harlem Shake and Gangnam Style spread like wildfire on our screens earlier this year. But are brands that are cashing in on these latest crazes being lazy or cleverly responding to a cultural phenomenon?

Everyone has jumped on the bandwagon – Topshop’s version of the Harlem Shake involved newest supermodel on the block, Cara Delevingne and reached over 1.4 million views on YouTube. Electric cigarettes brand, Elites, featured a baby taking his first steps before breaking into Gangnam Style and has been viewed 1.7 million times. 

Not everyone has got it right. Pepsi’s Harlem Shake edition was met with criticism for killing off the trend by making it too corporate and overtly promotional, whilst Wonderful Pistachio’s take on the dance craze, aired at the Super Bowl, was only the 20^th most shared advert of the event.

Memes are nothing new, but the increase of their online exposure is. Within three days, the amount of Harlem Shake videos online increased from 12,000 to 40,000 and had accumulated 175 million views. 

Memes also have a very short life span at when they are most effective. Brands that have come out on top have been quick to react to the latest trend and have captured the collective imagination as a result. Although Ask.com pre-empted criticism of their two-week late reincarnation with the pre-fix message, “Yeah, yeah, we know. We just couldn’t pass up the biggest meme of the week”, the 12,000 views generated hardly constituted viral success. 

A great advert doesn’t have to stem from a craze though. Take the Evian adverts for example. The inaugural edition of the award-winning ‘Roller Babies’ advert back in 2009 has a record 67 million views online – the most ever for an ad, holding a Guinness World Record. Now, there’s no such thing as an original idea, but what Evian did was no doubt clever and creative. Even the use of babies wasn’t new (Etrade babies golfed in adverts) but Evian’s was amusing, entertaining and puzzling – some could say some of the babies were slightly creepy.  

The water brand is hoping to beat its own record with this year’s advert ‘Baby & Me’. Launched a couple of weeks ago, the advert follows the same, fun loving approach as the 2009 ad, channelling the brand’s ‘live young’ strapline. A group of adults dance around in front of a reflective shop window and discover their reflections are, in fact, baby versions of themselves. The advert has received over 45 million views to date. It seems that, for the public, a good advert needs to be memorable, not meme full.

By Stephanie Rock 

Holidays are coming

Christmas adverts have always provided a festive marker for me. My sister and I used to wait impatiently for the Coca-Cola, holiday’s are coming advert. Seeing it was akin to glimpsing Rudolph’s nose peaking over the horizon- a promise of the festivities soon to come.

But when did Christmas advertising become so competitive?

Over the past fortnight, the heavyweights of British retail have been flexing their media muscle, eager to gain audience approval and drive consumer conversation through attention-grabbing television campaigns.

One of the first big-brand efforts to run the critical gauntlet was that of Waitrose. The up-market food retailer has chosen to shun big budget TV advertising this year, instead giving the estimated 1 million pounds usually spent to charitable causes. The result is an irritatingly pious offering, featuring Heston Blumenthal and Delia Smith, being very vocal about just how socially aware Waitrose is. It’s smug and seems to wave an implicit naughty finger at all the other retailers, including sister company John Lewis, who have continued to toe the blockbuster line. Clearly there’s no place for sisterhood in the competitive retail Christmas.

Despite this, John Lewis is claiming that its Christmas commercial, devised by advertising greats Adam and Eve DDB, is its most successful yet. The advert, which launched last weekend (10 November), has generated some 6,790 likes and 1,340 shares on Facebook so far and was trending last week on Twitter. Its 'go that extra mile' message is illustrated by a snowman, who travels over mountains and across streams, only to return with a hat and scarf set (presumably from John Lewis), for his shivering snow wife. All this is set to a cover of The Power of Love and is executed with a comic charm that has generated praise from viewers and critics alike.

Alongside the traditional, some say sentimental, ads this year, a worrying trend for realism has emerged. Asda came under fire last week, after airing its Christmas advert with the strapline, ‘Behind every great Christmas, there’s mum.’ The commercial features a fraught mum, juggling the demands of a thankless family, with Asda seemingly her only help. How the supermarket chain did not see the furor this would cause, I do not know, but it has outraged both male and female viewers, generating a strong reaction from fathers for justice who claim it belittles the role of fathers at Christmas.

Television advertising plays a huge part in communicating brand vision and ethos, and there are obvious, safe ways to use it.  Nevertheless, be it in an effort to snatch the rare Christmas pound, or mere creative competitiveness, retail brands are increasingly looking to create impact with their seasonal advertising offerings. The problem is, the flip side of impact is often risk. As Asda is now finding out, investing in advertising that communicates controversial brand values can be a costly mistake, especially as (according to my mother), all anyone really wants to see is Take That dancing round a country house.  

By Polly Robinson