I was reading AdAge, as I typically do, and came across an article on The Twilight Saga: New Moon and the advertising efforts they were engaging in. One particular ad caught my eye and made me think, “That’s a really bad and annoying idea.”New Moon has partnered with MySpace to post its full page ad that literally takes over a person’s homepage. Not only that, but, pictures of the characters from the movie will appear in the corner of every page. Talk about intrusive – have the advertisers heard of “pop-ups”? Because this ad is looking scarily close to an enormous pop-up. And what do we do to pop-ups? Block them. Why? Because no one cares about them and, frankly, are annoyed at having to click the X in the corner of the pop-up to make it go away while trying to access the internet page they were after in the first place.
Another thing the ad agency should have thought of – its social medium. MySpace? Really? I’ve heard it referred to as the “white trash version of Facebook.” Does anyone even use it anymore? My theory here is that the advertisers approached Facebook about doing this ad on the site and Facebook (quite rightly) said no. So then they went to MySpace (which I understand is trying to reinvent itself as an entertainment-centric social platform - good luck).
Now, they did do one thing right with the ad, and that was to offer a free soundtrack remix through Apple’s iTunes if a consumer buys a movie ticket online. That’s great interaction with a customer and definitely makes the idea of buying a movie ticket online a better alternative to buying in the theater. The only thing they should have thought of was not putting it with one large pop-up on a dead social site.
This ad had the beginnings of a good idea. If the company had put more interactive links on the ad (such as links to character blogs, Twitter feeds – which, come to think of it, I don’t think they even have) and placed it in a better spot, or even its own site, consumers might have been more excited at seeing a large ad pop-up. Perhaps the agency should have looked at another vampire-esque show (True Blood) and taken note of their amazing ad campaign.
Overall, I rate this as a complete fail by an agency to promote, what should be, the easiest movie to promote in years.
True, very intrusive! But homepage takeover are becoming more and more frequent. And I quite frankly think it’s a great way to advertise. What a better way to take over the screen for a few seconds and actually make the person see (or take a glimpse) of what is being advertised? You said it yourself in your blog, you block pop ups, so the advertising is hardly ever seen. And regarding MySpace use over Facebook, I think they used the best one given that Facebook skews older whereas MySpace is younger (which is the core target of Twilight Saga).
ReplyDeleteMegan,
ReplyDeleteYou made some excellent points here. I HATE intrusive advertising. While there may be intelligence to their overtaking of our home pages, they still annoy me. As a consumer, if the advertising makes me mad, I will sincerely let that affect wheither I buy their product or not. With films this is a little harder. I usually become more annoyed with the site that is allowing the crappy advertising like MySpace and sometimes IMDB has large ads. I have really gotten away from using MySpace for these types of reasons. So, annoying advertising may not make me avoid a film, but is that ad really making me more likely to see that film? I don't think so. It makes me wonder why these films do these website advertisements. If I want to see their movie, I probably was aware of it before their stupid, annoying website ad. Ha. I don't want to sound too negative. But agree with you. Good post.
I was just browsing in the bookstore and came across a book named "No Logo" by Naomi Klein. I only read the Forward, but she suggested in it that there's a trend towards disdain of companies that advertise too forcefully, and in turn some companies are testing out brand-less products or storefronts. Have you read the book and what are your thoughts?
ReplyDeleteAugie, no I haven't read the book, but I will definitely check it out. I agree with what you wrote - yes, companies need to lean more towards making connections with people instead of trying to force them to look at their product and buy their product. I've mentioned it numerous times before: consumers don't want companies, they want a person behind the company who they can relate to.
ReplyDeleteAs for brandless products or storefronts - I'm not sure that that will be good for the company (how will the company grow if a person knows nothing about it or its purpose?) but its an idea that could lead to a complete change in the face of advertising.