Tag Archives: advertising

Wife’s Search Appears In My Adverts

advertising

Anyone who has spent any time on the internet will have seen this. You do a search for a product or service, look at a few options, and for the next few days, you’ll see whatever you found advertised back to you in web pages. It’s annoying because either I’ve already bought the product or else I’ve dismissed it as unsuitable.

Here’s an example. The picture on the left is a holiday house in Iceland. The picture on right is the house advertised back to me later via a Dilbert email.

It all looks fairly normal, except that I didn’t do the search for the house. My wife did. The picture on the left is from my wife’s Samsung S2 tablet. The picture on the right is from my Huawei Mediapad.

I was very surprised to see this house. I only knew about it because my wife had shown me the pictures for Iceland as a holiday destination. Somehow the advertisers have managed to digitally link me and my wife. I have no idea how this was done as we have our own accounts on all our devices.

It’s really cunning. Advertise to partners for things that the other has already been searching on. Sow that seed in a husband’s mind – “Oooh, that looks like something Jenny would like! I’ll order that now.” Kerching…

Be aware of this. If you get advertised for something that you don’t recognise and would probably be of interest to your partner, you’re being fished.

And if it’s something that you don’t recognise, you’d quite like and your birthday’s coming up, just act surprised when you unwrap it.

Anyone else seen this? Very insidious.

Safe Cyclists Save with Nomi at Wearable Technology Show

Interview, Special Media, Wearable Technology Show, , , ,

Kicking off GNC’s coverage of the Wearable Technology Show, I chat to Valentina of Nomi. Their bright backpack LED display keeps cyclists safe while doubling up as a mobile billboard. The Nomi uses GPS to locate the cyclist and then show adverts relevant to the local area, with the rider earning a small commission from the advertiser.

Alternatively, the display can be programmed to show pictures or other information from, say, Twitter or Facebook.
 

The Nomi display is expected to come to market within a year and will be relatively inexpensive at around 30 euros.

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Annoying Advert In News Story

advertising, news,

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.

Annoying Advert

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.

Annoying Advert 2

You can check it out for yourself here.

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

Nintendo Goes After Player’s YouTube Profits

advertising, Gaming, YouTube, , ,

NintendoNintendo 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

advertising, automotive, , ,

Audi LogoIf 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!

My system crash revealed the one piece left in the Google ads puzzle

advertising, google, Security, , ,

For the most part I don’t find that Google ads are such a bad thing. They are relatively unobtrusive and they are generally based on such information as location and web history. Let’s leave alone the privacy implications of those two facts and look more at where I recently noticed that it falls short – although, I confess that this will lead to even more of a privacy nightmare for those who are a part of the tinfoil hat brigade.

It all begins with a sad story. You see, although I have purchased Windows 8, I have procrastinated about installing it and have stubbornly continued to run the Release Preview. Well, last night Microsoft reached out and touched my trusty laptop with an update that rendered the system unbootable. Despite several different approaches to fixing this I came up with no solution other than a re-install.

Don’t cry for me – everything is backed up with redundancy. This is more hassle than anything else.

A reinstall was the approach I took this morning, although it did provide me with the chance to finally move to the RTM. After finishing the setup I moved on to installing my usual apps like Chrome, Firefox, Office, 7-zip and a couple of others. The final step was my document backup which is stored on CrashPlan servers.

After visiting the CrashPlan site and initiating the restore I began browsing the web. What I found was that every site I visited that utilized Google Adsense was now displaying an ad for CrashPlan. Yes, they know my location and my browsing history, but what they don’t know, yet at least, is what services with which I already have an account.

That is the missing piece in this whole puzzle. Google earns nothing by displaying an ad that is rendered irrelevant because, already having the product or service, you have no reason to click.

So, how long before the search and advertising giant finds a way pull in this information as well? It’s certainly in their interest to display ads that make you want to click. It will happen at some point and it will certainly set off alarms with privacy advocates everywhere, but is it really such a bad thing to see something that is more relevant to you? That is the real question that needs to be debated here.

Image: Computer Security by BigStock

Ford Drives Real World Customers from the Gaming World

advertising, Ford, Gaming, , , , ,

Today Ford announced their latest advertising initiative, which involves the gaming world.  No, you won’t be able to play Angry Birds in your car via Sync, that would likely prove dangerous.  What Ford is doing is branding their vehicles in video games, and it’s actually not something new.  They have been at this for a while, beginning in 1995 with Sega Rally, but they are now making a more concerted push.

While gamers seem locked into their virtual worlds, they are surprisingly aware of the products that appear in those worlds.  And driving games may be one of the genres where the gamer is most aware of the product.  After all, the gamer in a car race is keenly aware of the car he or she chooses because it may make the difference between winning and losing.

“We’ve realized that gaming is something that many people have grown up with and helps define who they are,” said Brian Mcclary, with Ford’s Social and Emerging Media team. “Ford has gained positive exposure and popularity because we put our products into the right games while giving something back to the gamer.”

Ford is doubling down their efforts now with the release of Forza Motor Sport 4 (released 10/11/11) and Need for Speed The Run (to be released 11/15/11).  They have found that allowing their vehicles to be used in-game gets them more brand recognition and more positive feedback, which translates to more potential customers.  Here are the numbers that they provided from their study.

36% increase in brand rating

28% increase in purchase consideration

39% increase in brand recommendation

45% more gamers agreed Ford Focus is fun to drive

It’s good to see Ford continue to “get it” with their innovation to keep them on top in an ever-changing digital world.  Their partnership with Microsoft for the Sync system and the forward looking advertising with gaming and even with supporting podcasts is something many other old-world companies should take note of.

If you are a gamer, you can check out Forza Motor Sport 4 in the Xbox Marketplace and NSF The Run at the EA Need for Speed website (you can pre-order now).  You can view a trailer of NSF below, but it’s not completely family safe (language).