Aap! - Alternative Advertising Possibilities

Product placement in the movies is one thing - from James Bond driving a BMW to a Ferrari but ever imagine Sherlock Holmes recommending brands of pipes in his literary classic?

Well prepare for it - product placement and other subversive alternative advertising techniques have hit novels and popular literature.

Also known as product plugging - this type of advertising while controversial, is effective and proven.

One of the best-known instances of product placement appeared in 1982 movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which increased sales of Reese’s Pieces 65 percent. (Source wikipedia.org)

Other examples in movies and other media include:

- In Desperate Housewives, a popular American television series - three of the characters drive Nissan branded cars with camera view often focused on the Nissan symbol on someone’s car.
- The 1974 film The Man with the Golden Gun featured extensive use of AMC cars, even in scenes in Thailand, where AMC cars were not sold, and had the steering wheel on the wrong side of the vehicle for the country’s roads.
- or the example of exclusive Hewlett Packard computer placements in Ikea furniture catalogs

These inclusive examples are well known and common in most of today’s blockbuster films.

And while literature has always included examples of well known brands to help build scene or maintain a certain setting - new agreements between publishers, writers and brands showcase how novels have jumped on the popular product placement wagon.

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Today we’re exploring the controversial world of subliminal advertising with an over of recent me examples in practice across different media in hopes of determining if its effective, ethical and productive.

First a definition from Wikipedia:

“A subliminal message is a signal or message embedded in another object, designed to pass below the normal limits of perception. These messages are indiscernible to the conscious mind, but are alleged to be perceptible to the subconscious or deeper mind: for example, an image transmitted so briefly that it is only perceived subconsciously, but not otherwise noticed. Subliminal techniques have occasionally been used in advertising and propaganda; the purpose, effectiveness and frequency of such techniques is debated.” (Wikipedia)

So where does it fit in the world of advertising?

Lets move to a well known historical example:

DRINK COKE! - EAT POPCORN

“Perhaps the most widely known claim was made in 1957 by James Vicary, a market researcher. He claimed that over a six-week period, 45,699 patrons at a movie theater in Fort Lee, New Jersey were shown two advertising messages, Eat Popcorn and Drink Coca-Cola, while they watched the film Picnic. According to Vicary, a message was flashed for 3/1000 of a second once every five seconds. The duration of the messages was so short that they were never consciously perceived. Despite the fact that the customers were not aware of perceiving the messages, Vicary claimed that over the six-week period the sales of popcorn rose 57.7% and the sales of Coca-Cola rose 18.1%.”

Vicary’s claims led to a public outcry, and to many conspiracy theories of governments and cults using the technique to their advantage. The practice of subliminal advertising was subsequently banned in the United Kingdom, and Australia, but not formally in the United States (actions were taken by the National Association of Broadcasters in 1958.

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Sometimes the graffiti placed on adverts adds an incredible laugh! - The kids @ Geek Graffiti have set up these fun and nauseating transparency “blister” adhesives to stick on to your favorite adverts!

Add some fun to your commute!

Print your own @ Geek Graffiti’s Printable Cold Sores

I wonder if Pfizer or another pharma. would dare use these for an alternative advertising campaign for Abrevas’s Cold Sore Medicine

As the site disclaims : “*NOTE: Tagging subway ads is illegal! You can make your point simply by documenting your work, removing your stickers, and submitting an image. I am in no way responsible for your actions, I am merely presenting a theoretical solution to a real-world problem.”

An interesting out of home media campaign by the Salvation Army in Brasil:

The Salvation Army has launched an interesting outdoor campaign to raise awareness, donations of clothes, and money in Brazil. Using real cardboard, plastic trash bags and old sneeker boxes that were found on the actual streets of Brazil, the “shock adverts” bring references back to the living conditions of the people they help.

Via Digg.

Electronic Arts Japan as decided to use Japanese political election style advertising to promote its new Nintendo DS Simcity port.  Look out for the little car in a city near you blasting Simcity news.  The little branded vehicle will be driving throughout the country.

More on Simcity DS 

Via Famicom

We’ve got to give credit to Saatchi & Saatchi, the creative agency behind this very ingenious (and possibly offensive) fun outdoor media campaign for Head and Shoulders Anti-Dandruff shampoo that placed a camera into the ceiling of British photo booths. When the users snapped a photo of themselves - besides receiving a set of traditional prints, the user also received a photo of their recipient’s hairline with instructions and notes on the dandruff shampoo.

Via Core 77

In-game advertising is failing to influence games players, according to a survey conducted by behavioral research agency Bunnyfoot.

Results showed a failure to capture the attention of the player in sports game which followed a real-world model of advertising, with the firm noting that, “current methods are not optimising consumer engagement and are failing to influence the consumer in any significant way”.

According to the firm, recall and recognition of in-game ads was low across the board. NBA Live and WWE Smackdown Vs RAW came out on top in the survey, while Project Gotham Racing 3 elicited no consumer engagement at all.

There is a lot of support from game makers and advertisers for this form of upgraded product placement. Will in-game advertising spend that in today is pegged around 60 million grow as expected to $1.8 billion by 2010 or will gamers and advertisers take cues that this type of advertising is more damaging and in effective? Only time will tell.

For the time being and as active gamers - we’re just happy that hopefully we’ll see less adverts in gaming.

Some interesting links on in game advertising:

General Background on In Game Advertising @ Wikipedia

In-Game Advertising Dos and Don’ts

Most Despicable Use of In-Game Advertising @ Game Spot Reviews

From Adrants we learned of the following anti-drowning campaign by Australia’s Watch Around Water NGO. The organization is placing images of drowned children at the bottom of swimming pools. While its definitely eye catching and creative - I’m worried about THE annoyance this might cause for passing individuals? Will they jump in to save the child?

Or as the Adrants editor points “At some point we figure people are going to catch onto this whole fake-dead-people-as-props trend, and when they do they’ll come across some real dead people and scoff. Then what are we going to do? Say “I’m sorry”?”

While definitely creative and daring, the advert is tasteless and intrusive? Worse - what will that true little boy think? Is he traumatized, did he learn his lesson? Has this advert saved any children?
I hope not for the sake of children world wide.

Related information from Wikipedia on drowning…

In many countries, drowning is one of the leading causes of death for children under 14 years old. The rate of drowning in populations around the world varies widely according to their access to water, the climate and the national swimming culture. For example, typically the United Kingdom suffers 450 drownings per annum or 1 per 150,000 of population whereas the United States suffers 6,500 drownings or around 1 per 50,000 of population. Drowning related injuries are the fifth most likely cause of accidental death in the US. In some regions, drowning is the second most likely cause of injury and death for children after car accidents. The rate of near drowning incidents is unknown. Victims are more likely to be male, young or adolescent. Surveys indicate that 10% of children under 5 have experienced a situation with a high risk of drowning. The causes of drowning cases in the US are as follows:

• ^{44% are related to swimming}
• ^{17% are related to boating}
• ^{14% are unattributed}
• ^{10% related to scuba diving}
• ^{7% related to car accidents}

More importantLy - here is what parents can do to prevent drownings>

From Safe Kids Canada

Stay with young children at all times when they are near water or in water.

Young children most often drown in these water hazards:

* home swimming pools
* bathtubs
* rivers and lakes
* hot tubs, ditches, ponds, sewage lagoons, canals

Safety check

* Always stay right beside your child (under age 5) when he or she is in the water or close to water. This includes the bathtub. Make sure you can see your child at all times. Do not leave him or her alone, not even for a few seconds.
* If there is a water hazard nearby, do not leave your child (under age 5) in the care of an older child without adult supervision.
* If you have a swimming pool, make sure it is properly fenced in and has a gate that closes and latches by itself (called a self-closing, self-latching gate).

For more on preventing drowning

An interesting art project sparked our interest on the popular blog “We Make Money Not Art”

Sascha Pohflepp is a new media artist based in Berlin.

His Buttons (aka the “Blind Camera”) captures a moment at the press of a button. However, the device doesn’t have any optical part instead memorizes only the time of the picture and immediately searches the net for other photos that have been taken in the same moment.

Essentially, it is a camera that only takes photos that were created by someone who pressed a button somewhere else at that very time as its own button was pressed.

Sascha Pohflepp writes.
After a few minutes or hours, depending on how soon someone else shares their photo on the web, an image will appear on the screen. In a way, it belongs half to the person who had pressed the button and still remembers that moment. Because of that connection, the photos are never dismissed as random, no matter how enigmatic they may be.

Video.

We share a similar attraction to the project as lead blogger of “We make money not art” writes:

“Brilliant stuff, Sascha! I’m sure i’ll still want to take my own pictures but i’d love to have another one that allows me to do on the spot what i can’t help doing when i upload my images on flickr: snooping around to check the photgraphies of other users who attended the same event as me or know the same person or happen to be in town that day.”

Well worth a look, Blink, the other chapter of Sascha’s project.

“Paul Curtis aka Moose is no regular graffiti artist. In fact, heâ??s the reverse-graffiti artist. He created his street art by *cleaning* the dirt and grime off of surfaces!

Authorities are baffled: is selective cleaning a crime?

From an NPR interview we learn :

The tools are simple: A shoe brush, water and elbow grease, he says.

British authorities arenâ??t sure what to make of the artist who is creating graffiti by cleaning the grime of urban life. The Leeds City Council has been considering what to do with Moose. “Iâ??m waiting for the kind of Monty Python court case where exhibit A is a pot of cleaning fluid and exhibit B is a pair of my old socks,” he jokes.”

We’re big fan of the layers that make urban centers and Graffiti one of those layers is of motivation to us working in outdoor media.

But do a little more research on Paul Curtis the man behind Clean Graffati and you see that he’s started a small boutique agency using his signature style graffati in urban centers for advertising clients like Microsoft XBox, Size?, Smirof and a few others. Check out his agency Symbollix if you are interested.

Here is some work he did for the television series Big Brother. Should he be fined? Should he share his profit from the project with the city as would other more conventional bill boards and other outdoor advertising?