Category Archives: advertising

Annoying Advert In News Story

January 11, 2015advertising, newsadvertising, newsAndrew

Newspapers. I know that you are having a tough time of it at the moment, but here’s a way to make sure that I never visit your website and never buy your newspaper ever again. It’s easy, just insert an advert into a news story and force me to click on it before you show me the rest of the story.

Here’s what you get at the start of the story.

After clicking on the correct answer, you now get the rest of the story and an inserted promotional video. How annoying is that? Even worse, you have to click on the correct answer. Clicking on a wrong answer gets you further patronising information about the programme.

You can check it out for yourself here.

Goodbye Belfast Newsletter – as “the world’s oldest continuously published English publication”, you should know better.

Hachette Will Start Selling Books on Twitter

December 9, 2014advertising, TwitterHachette, TwitterJenThorpe

You’ve probably seen tweets from authors who are trying to get their book in front of the eyes of their Twitter followers. Soon, some authors will be able to use Twitter to do more than that. Hachette is about to start selling some of its books through Twitter.

How will this work? Hachette is partnering with Gumroad (a company that helps people to sell stuff on Twitter). Those that want to purchase a book via Twitter will use Twitter’s “Buy” button to do it.

This, of course, means that people won’t have to leave Twitter and visit Amazon in order to buy the book they want. It also means that authors on Twitter who have a lot of followers will have an easy way to sell their books directly to their fans.

It seems to be a bit of an experiment on Hachette’s part. The book publisher has selected three authors, who each have a lot of followers on Twitter, for its first round. An exclusive limited edition gift will be included with the purchase of each book. It is a little something extra that Amazon cannot offer. One can assume that if the first round is deemed to be successful, there will be more to come.

On December 11, Amanda Palmer’s book The Art of Asking, will be available to buy through Twitter. She will include a page from the original manuscript from her book. It will have notes on it from both herself and her husband Neil Gaiman (who was her editor).

Two more books will become part of the Twitter in-stream sale on December 15. Former astronaut Chris Hadfield’s book You Are Here is one of them. You might recognize this astronaut from his viral YouTube video in which he sang David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”. His “extra” is signed, original, photos.

The third book is from The Onion. It is titled The Onion Magazine: Iconic Covers that Transformed an Undeserving World. Those who purchase it through Twitter will also get notecards compiled by The Onion’s editors that show their 12 favorite magazine covers.

Pandora Introduces Promoted Stations

May 25, 2014advertisingpandoraJenThorpe

It was only a matter of time, I suppose. Pandora has announced that it will be including Promoted Stations. They are described as “native ad units designed to help advertisers drive Pandora listeners into custom content”.

This is the first time that Pandora has natively integrated ad product within a listener’s station list. Those who are currently using Pandora can expect to see some of the Promoted Stations appear in their “Stations You Might Like” list.

Right now, the Promoted Stations are in a “beta launch”. They include playlists from: Kleenex Brand, SKETCHERS USA Inc., StubHub, Taco Bell, and Toyota Motor Sales. More companies may be added as the year goes on.

Obviously, the companies involved are hoping that people will check out their playlist. They hope this will cause people to look favorably upon their products, and that this will lead them to make more purchases. I am skeptical that this is how things will actually work.

For example, as an allergic person, I might decide to take a look at the Kleenex playlist. I buy plenty of Kleenex and like their product. I won’t be buying any more of it just because they have a Promoted Station on Pandora, though. My purchases will be about the same as they were before.

On the other hand, I’m not a fan of Taco Bell (in part because my many food allergies mean that I cannot safely eat their food). I’m not the slightest bit motivated to check out their playlist. If I stumbled upon it, I can guarantee that it will not influence me to start eating at Taco Bell.

It seems to me that the majority of people who use Pandora are seeking out music from bands that they already like and are familiar with. They might decide to give a listen to a suggested band that sounds very similar to one they like. I highly doubt that anyone goes to Pandora to seek out a playlist of random bands selected by a corporation that is trying to sell the listener a product that does not even remotely relate to music.

Groups Ask the FTC to Investigate the WhatsApp Deal

March 6, 2014advertising, Facebook, PrivacyFacebook, WhatsAppJenThorpe

The Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy are asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate how the WhatsApp deal will impact the privacy of its users. Facebook acquired WhatsApp just a few weeks ago.

The concern is that Facebook will use the personal information of WhatsApp’s more than 450 million users to target advertising. Those who started using WhatsApp before it was acquired by Facebook were told that WhatsApp would not collect user data for advertising revenue. The complaint states:

Facebook routinely makes use of user information for advertising purposes and has made clear that it intends to incorporate the data of WhatsApp users into the user profiling business model. The proposed acquisition will therefore violate WhatsApp users’ understanding of their exposure to online advertising and constitutes an unfair and deceptive trade practice, subject to investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.

On June 18, 2012, WhatsApp posted a blog titled “Why we don’t sell ads”. Perhaps the key point is this sentence: “Remember, when advertising is involved you the user are the product.”

WhatsApp also posted a blog on February 19, 2014, titled “Facebook”. It is about the acquisition. The key point from that blog might be this sentence: “Here’s what will change for you, our users: nothing.” The blog promises that users can still count on absolutely no ads interrupting their communication through WhatsApp. Facebook has issued a statement indicating that they will honor WhatsApps commitments to privacy and security.

This situation reminds me of some words of wisdom that gets passed around. You cannot be certain that anything posted on “the internet” (on a blog, in a chat, or through social media) will be kept private forever. That being said, I can understand why users of WhatsApp feel betrayed. WhatsApp promised not to sell their data for adverting purposes. Will Facebook keep that promise? It will be very interesting to see what the FTC thinks about this situation.

Nintendo Goes After Player’s YouTube Profits

May 17, 2013advertising, Gaming, YouTubeadvertising, Gaming, Nintendo, YouTubeJenThorpe

Nintendo has started doing something that is not making gamers very happy. The company has started taking the ad revenue from videos that players post on YouTube of themselves playing one of Nintendo’s games. These are referred to as “Let’s Play” videos, and people make them about all kinds of different video games (not just the ones from Nintendo).

Have you ever watched a YouTube video that showed a portion of a video game? People make them all the time. For gamers, it is a good way to learn how to beat a “boss”, to check out end-game content before their characters are big enough to get there, and to discover techniques that they may not have figured out for themselves. Other people will stream themselves playing a game so people can watch “in real time”. The player might record what he or she is streaming and post it on YouTube.

When a new game comes out that looks interesting to me, I will go to YouTube in the hopes of finding videos that show what the actual game play is like. I’ve also watched live streamed games for the same reason. It’s a good way to find out more about the game than the official ad shows. If I can’t find any further information about the game from these type of sources, it is highly unlikely that I will end up buying it.

Nintendo is using YouTube’s Content-ID to identify the videos that contain content from their games. One of the options that the Content-ID system allows is for the content owner to block that video from YouTube. Another option is for the content owner to make money from the videos that include their content but were posted by someone else.

In this case, Nintendo is placing ads that generate revenue onto the videos that were posted by gamers that showed them playing one of Nintendo’s games. Effectively, what happens is that the gamer is now unable to make any revenue from those videos. Instead, that money goes directly to Nintendo.

This can be problematic for people who have a YouTube channel that is filled with gameplay videos that have been generating ad revenue for the gamer. GameFront posted a statement from Nintendo:

As part of our on-going push to ensure Nintendo content is shared across social media channels in an appropriate and safe way, we became a YouTube partner and as such in February 2013 we registered our copyright content in the YouTube database. For most fan videos this will not result in any changes, however, for those videos featuring Nintendo-owned content, such as images or audio of a certain length, adverts will now appear at the beginning, next to or at the end of the clips. We continually want our fans to enjoy sharing Nintendo content on YouTube, and that is why, unlike other entertainment companies, we have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property.

I believe that Nintendo is “shooting themselves in the foot” with this choice. Gamers who make “Let’s Play” videos, and who have a YouTube channel that is making them a profit in ad revenue now have good reason to stop making videos of Nintendo’s games. They are going to choose games from other companies instead. The result will be less “Nintendo content shared across social media channels”, not more.

Audi Presents: Spock vs. Spock

May 7, 2013advertising, automotiveadvertising, Audi, Automotive, Star TrekJenThorpe

If you are like me, then you probably do whatever you can to avoid having to watch commercials. Once in a while, though, it is worth taking a few minutes to check out an exceptionally well done ad. Such is the case with Audi’s new commercial, which features Mr. Spock vs. Mr. Spock… sort of.

Most people would recognize that Leonard Nimoy played the role of Spock in Star Trek the Original Series, (as well as in several Star Trek movies). The newly rebooted version of the Star Trek movies features Zachary Quinto as a young Spock. The Audi commercial has each actor playing himself, with the actor’s version of Spock overlapping him.

Basically, the two agree to have a race to the country club. Whoever gets there last has to buy lunch. The entire ad is sprinkled with subtle (and more obvious) things that Star Trek fans will immediately recognize. At the start, the two Spocks are playing a game of 3 Dimensional Chess against each other.

What might not be as obvious to viewers is the song that Leonard Nimoy sings in the commercial. It is called “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” which appears on the “Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy” album. Yes, he really did record that song!