Stephen Crooks Experience Economy Blog » Advertising

A peak at the Ad Agency of the near Future (and it’s Scary)

Stephen Crooks — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:37:10 +0000

: Don’t tell us what you think, we’ll tell you.

9:30 AM. Man walks into the office. He’s greeted by an executive. Offered a glass of water and is lead to a screening room. The guest positions himself comfortably on a chesterfield in a simulation of home living room. Once sat down the visitor is asked to put on their head a device that looks like a bike helmet.

The room is darkened and and a Television commercial is played. As quick as takes to play the 30 second spot, the meeting is over and our guest is free to leave with a 10$ cheque in hand. That’s it. And in those 30 seconds more is learned about the performance of a television commercial than 20 hours worth of group panel discussions.
Welcome to the future, welcome to the neuromarketing age. An era where all commercials will be hyper-optimized to generate some of the most manipulative consumption propaganda the world has ever seen.

For those who don’t know what neuromarketing is, it basically is analyzing brainwaves to see what areas of the human brain responds well to various sensory elements. For get what people say (as they often mislead or don’t truthfully express their likes and desires), by pass the bias of communication and go straight to source.

Ad agencies will in record time be able to get feedback on whether their targeted demographics like or dislike a campaign. Think of the power, think of the abuse of such a system.

Advertising to the reptilian brain. I have a lot to say on this subject – so watch for more posts.

Release the Ads

Stephen Crooks — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 07:31:34 +0000

Sample of a Canadian Tire banner ad which allows in banner browsing.

I’m a big proponent of shifting the concept of the sole purpose of an online banner ad to drive traffic back to it’s mothership – a website.

Attached to the right is an example of an ad that lives on it’s own (not the greatest in design) but I really like the execution. You can navigate through the ad viewing a basic buyers guide, seeing a few products and an the ability to sign-up for their flyer – all from the comfort of your webpage.

All while being branded. The ads are non-threatening, passive and allow me to interact without disrupting my “mission” – whatever the purpose was of me to be on the same page as the ad was displayed.

We need to work to shift from the concept of ads being nothing more than providing support to a website, rather being an extended arm of it. These interactive ads can help widen the net of a campaign.

THE BOTTOM LINE

- Ads need to maintain the trust of the user for them to catch on – no fake arrows or tabs that don’t function the way you’d expect.

- Keep the message short.

- You don’t always need to drive traffic back to your website as to repeat a message that can be equally relayed in the ad.

Are Banner Ads Dying? (marketingpilgrim.com)
Why Web Ads Suck (karenmcgrane.com)

The Wind

Stephen Crooks — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:12:48 +0000

I love this commercial, very simple concept, yet surprisingly original. It’s definitely memorable.

Microsoft ad Fakery

Stephen Crooks — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:48:20 +0000

This is great. Microsoft in their never ending obsession with Apple created an Ad where they found people on Craigslist to “purchase” a computer under $1,000 – a price point below anything Apple offers. So they got these people on camera to run around and show how much variety of PC products there are – and all the great features offered.

One problem with the ads – they’ve been faked – these so called real people may not be as real as Microsoft would like us to believe. Eagle eyed bloggers have noticed that in this segment the woman never even enters the Apple store where she claims they had nothing to offer.

Enough to enter this commercial into the Hall of Shame.

Hall of Famer: Microsoft Songsmith

Stephen Crooks — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:05:01 +0000