advergirl

Four new Web sites to play with

I'll share. You decide.

Dominos Big Fantastic Pizza Builder
Starz' Headcase original series site
Ikea's calm bedrooms experience site
Microsoft's Simplify Your Work campaign site

Dogears: Good stuff I pre-read for my favorite readers

Open Collaboration and the Future of Public Relations - free white paper

An Introductory Guide to Global Citizen Media - free download

16 Ways of Looking at a Female Voter

Stuff White People Like #46 The Sunday New York Times

Who Is Grady Harp? Amazon's Top Reviewers and the fate of the literary amateur.

Avoiding Purple Gorillas: 5 Principles of Installation Advertising

Dimensional buzz builders.

Installation advertising.

Once limited to inflatable purple gorillas bouncing atop regional auto dealerships, it's now a medium that more and more clients are demanding. A way to make a big statement about your brand in an environment that is anything but corporate.

In the spirit of avoiding purple gorillas, a few guiding principles on what installation advertising 'should be' to discuss:

1. Integral to the space: Be a part of the space you're in. Interact with it. Make fun of it. Complement it. This isn't a mass market billboard, it has to make use of the space you're in. Like, for example, Saatchi's paper dolls peeing on trees in Central Park.
   
   
2. Relevant to the brand: To be effective, installation advertising has to deliver on your brand - not just be shocking for the sake of being shocking. Think, for example, giant Nike shoes taking off in rush hour traffic after a run-away soccer ball.


3. Personal to an individual: Sometimes scale is in the number of little touches. The unexpected treat that you couldn't believe happened until you talked to your girlfriend and she got one, too. And, suddenly it's all you can talk about ... the sheer weird, unexpected Thing. Despite news out this week that SunFlower Market isn't going to make it, they surely started out successfully with hundreds of potted sunflowers "lawnvertising" in the front yards of their surprised neighbors.


4. Fresh and unexpected: Probably goes without saying: It's usually best to be first. I'm not saying strap a bunch of gamers to a semi truck with duct tape to make your point, but...


5. Extendable to wider audiences: I should maybe say, "and sometimes 5." Sometimes the one-off, news-making installation does all the heavy-lifting for you. But, in an experience economy made egalitarian by technology, there's a lot to be said for biting the budget bullet and rolling the experience to where your customers are.

One recent set of installations that over delivered on all of these from BBDO New York and Havaianas:

From I Believe in Advertising:

(top) Limited-edition welcome mats were produced and distributed by BBDO New York as a unique way for people to store their Havaianas. When leaving for the day, people simply slid their feet in and stepped out of the mat. When returning home, the flip-flops were popped back in. Because Havaianas are impervious to bad weather, the mat can be kept either inside or outside. Keeping the mat inside further solidifies Havaianas’ connection to nature by essentially “welcoming” people to the outdoors when they leave for the day.

(bottom) In an effort to push Havaianas’ floral-print flip-flops, flower-bed installations were planted in locations where they were sold. They also served to remind people of Havaianas’ unique aesthetic of color, design, and the brand’s connection to nature and the outdoors.

Dogears: Good stuff I pre-read for my favorite readers

They're the little elves that could
How to Market to the Modern Mom
Best of Ads, Worst of Ads: In pitching this past year, gorilla worked, guerrilla didn't
Mac Attack
Paul Williams: Pave Your Brand Roadmap
7 Tips for Boosting Web Form Conversions
Stop fondling on the hammer, focus on the house
Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2007
Online consumer-generated reviews have big impact on offline purchases
Generation Google: Not so much

'Older people are sticky'

Forget bacn, microtrends, twittering and the other trial phrases of the moment, this article-opener from the New York Times has to be the newest addition to our shared vernacular:

"New Social Sites Cater to People of a Certain Age"

Older people are sticky.

That is the latest view from Silicon Valley. Technology investors and entrepreneurs, long obsessed with connecting to teenagers and 20-somethings, are starting a host of new social networking sites aimed at baby boomers and graying computer users.

Read full article

Reruns, hypocrisy and procrastination

Ah, great topics in any agency. All in a little advergirl buffet today:

A Rerun: T.G. just reminded me of this classic ad parody from the Director of Yuletide Messaging...

And - I'm practically your virtual TIVO here, but - it brought to mind these other all-time faves:

Sharpe Blackmore's Conference Call Audio Clip

The Bullshit Observer's Hallway Test

Meyocks Group's Kids Love to Work in Advertising

Microsoft's The Break UP

(yes, I said Microsoft. I know. But... it's true)

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The Baconator OR Hypocrisy: Why self-report data is always suspect

R.M. spotted this tasty item in Media Post (also covered by Mr.BaconPants):

Recently 21.3% of consumers reported agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement, "I am making a sustained effort to eat healthy at restaurants"

Never fear. Product marketers at Wendys know how to sway those health nuts: Six strips of hickory smoked bacon on top of a half-pound of never-frozen beef. The Baconator. Now in a restaurant near you.

This capped off their new belt-busting line featuring: the Triple Stack cheeseburger and the Steakhouse Double-Melt cheeseburger.

(You think I'm kidding, but this is the actual menu)

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Ok, last item (of course): Procrastination (and, oddly, this is the most interesting item in the bunch):

A new ScanAlert study has found that online shoppers delay on average 34 hours and 19 minutes from the time they first click to an ecommerce site and when they finally buy something there.

That's up from 19 hours in 2005.

Making ad consumption easier...

Check out fabulous new aggregator: Ad Feed

Really nice interface + good selection of content  - definitely making my jam-packed Newsgator file seem a lot less interesting.

(even though the 'Girl receives no billing! ... serves me right for inconsistent posting. If there's one thing AdMom always told me, it's 'the first rule of good blogging is consistent posting')