Creative Advertisements

Society is filled with a plethora of advertisements, from prime time TV shows that often include 18 commercials per hour to magazines, which are becoming increasingly ad, not content, focused. The fall 2007 issue of Vogue was a record 840, but only 113 of those pages were editorial. The other 727 pages, or 87 percent, were advertisements. The issue weighed in at 4 pounds, 9 ounces! Those ads aren't cheap, either.

Yet despite the high cost of advertisements, whether they're in magazines or on TV, research shows they might not be all that effective after all. More than 30 percent of TV viewers mentally tune out during commercial breaks, while 41 percent channel surf and 33 percent talk through them. Only 5.5 percent of viewers fully tune in for commercials. It's also easy to skip past the ads in magazine, especially once you're familiar with where they show up. In fashion magazines, the first 10 pages or so are usually all advertisements.

Due to the ubiquity of advertisements and consumers' general disinterest in them, advertisers are coming up with continually more creative ways to get their messages across. The new and unique methods some firms have devised are surely memorable. Of course, if they become as commonplace as scented perfume ads or product placement in TV shows and movies, they too will cease to be memorable.

10 Creative and Memorable Methods of Advertising

1. Escalator: Rediffusion DY&R in Mumbai, India, chose to advertise Juice Salon on an elevator. On the bottom of the elevator is an image of a man's head; on each step, a hairstyle. As the steps slide into the bottom of the elevator, the man's hairstyle changes.

A video of the ad in action is available on YouTube:

2. Moldy Cheese: The main competitor of Adobe InDesign (publishing software) is Quark, which has long dominated the publishing industry. "Quark," in German, is also the name for "curd cheese," a theme that Adobe played off of with a recent promotion for InDesign. Rapp Collins in Germany sent tubs of past-the-expiration-date Quark. Inside was a layer of "mould," and then a recipe book-inspired flyer advertising InDesign and offering a free download of the program.

3. Fruit: Klas and Maria Lindstrand's new book, Tutti Frutti, is a fruits and berries resource with facts, recipes, and photographs for each fruit and berry. The advertisements? Fruit stickers. The stickers are the size of the brand stickers usually found on supermarket fruits, but bear the book's name and instructions to purchase the book online at adlibris. The advertising strategy was conceived by Klas, who also thought to mail the book to critics in the mesh packaging in which fruits, apples, and other fruits are often bought.

4. Dogs in the Park: Pedigree chose to time its adoption drive and the opening of its NYC Dogstore with the Westminster Dog Show. For the 21-year sponsor of the Westminster Dog Show, TBWA\Chiat\Day placed advertising dogs in Central Park. The orange, wooden dogs bore the message, "Wish I was here. But I'm not. Come visit me and other great shelter dogs at the PEDIGREE DOGSTORE on 46th and Broadway."

5. Bubble: For the Latin American candy company Arcor, Leo Burnett created a bubble ad. When a magazine reader opens the spread containing the Arcor ad, a 3-D "gum bubble" pops up, creating the illusion that the person in the ad has blown a bubble with Arcor gum.

6. Welcome Mat: BBDO New York produced limited edition welcome mats to promote Havaianas flip-flops. The mats contained flip-flops so, when leaving for the day, one can simply step onto the welcome mat to put on shoes. Upon return, the flip-flops pop right back into the mat.

7. Flowerbeds: Another three-dimensional ad created for Havaianas by BBDO New York were giant flip-flop flowerbeds. Located where Havaianas are sold, such as in malls, the flowerbeds were designed to "remind people of Havaianas’ unique aesthetic of color, design, and the brand’s connection to nature and the outdoors."

8. Codes: Several companies have employed this method in somewhat different ways. Google created a now-famous billboard that simply read, "{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com". The billboard was displayed in Silicon Valley, while banners in Harvard Square carried the same message. Those smart enough to solve the puzzle discovered a Web site with another puzzle. Eventually, those who solved all the puzzles were asked to submit a resume.

When an expert typographer was needed at Lunar BBDO in London, the creative directors devised a similar plan. They created three coded advertisements. In one, the text was completely in Webdings, Wingdings, and Zapf Dingbats. The ads were placed at local design schools and ran in typographic publications. The campaign drew thirty responses.

9. Gum-by-Numbers: Hubba Bubba chose to promote its product while fighting the gum-on-the-street problem. DDB designed paint-by-number posters for the company; the posters' color palettes are comprised of different flavors of gum. Gum chewers are encouraged to fill the famous images (the Mona Lisa and Marilyn Monroe) with their used gum.

10. Flavor Strips: Most magazine readers are well-acquainted with scented ads, usually for perfumes. Welch's is making use of the new flavored-advertising technique developed by First Flavor. This month, issues of People magazine will contain Welch's ads with flavored strips that resemble mint breath strips. Readers are instructed: "For a TASTY fact, remove & LICK." The ads have sparked hygiene concerns, since magazines are often passed among readers. However, First Flavor assures that, due to the ad's design, whether the strip has already been licked is immediately apparent.

CBS talked to average consumers about the lickable new Welch's advertisements and the "ick" factor:

References:
> Blog archive @ I Believe in Advertising
> "'Forbidden Fruit' Book Advertises..." @ Adland
> "Google Entices Job-Searchers with Math Puzzle" @ NPR
> "If You Can Read This, You're Hired" @ CreativePro
> "Marketers Salivate Over Lickable Ads" @ The Wall Street Journal
> "Pedigree: Central Park" @ Creativity Online
> "The Ad Zapper in Your Brains" @ AdLab
> "Vogue Makes History" @ PRNewsWire

A slightly different version of this post appears on mental_floss magazine's web site.

Campaigns: Local vs. National

Although both local advertising campaigns and national ones have the same end goal--to sell something, the campaigns are usually drastically different. Local campaigns should, in theory, be able to better tap into the mentality of their target market, yet they tend to more straightforward, less interesting, and less creative than national campaigns. In fact, national campaigns that specialize for different markets, like Sprint's "Coverage like..." or AT&T's "More bars in more places" campaign, end up appealing to local markets more than the local ad campaigns created for those specific markets.

In magazines like New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore Style, the local ads are usually for apartment buildings, restaurants, and theatrical performances. On the inside back page of a recent issue of New York ran an ad for Barclay Tower, "Glenwood's New Luxury Rental in Tribeca." Glenwood appeared to be marketing its newest luxury apartment building as the ideal apartments for young, wealthy, vibrant professionals in the "in" crowd. The ad, though, is rather boring and overrun with text, which would usually put off the exact crowd that Glenwood is attempting to draw in.

Ad for Glenwood's Barclay Tower, as seen in New York magazine

On that same page the next week ran an ad for K-Y® Intrigue Heat. The K-Y ad, part of a national campaign, much better tapped into the mentality of the young, wealthy, vibrant professionals than the Glenwood ad. The K-Y ad is more interesting visually, less overrun with text, and more unique than the Glenwood ad, and therefore better able to appeal to the young market. K-Y is marketing the Intrigue Heat lubricant as an exotic, exciting, passionate product, and its ad captures that feel. Glenwood, however, is trying to market Barclay Tower as an exciting place to live in the midst of the hustle-and-bustle of the city, using the line, "Live it up downtown!", but Glenwood is unable to convey that attitude through its ad.

Ad for K-Y® Intrigue Heat, as seen in New York magazine

Granted, Glenwood's product is vastly different from K-Y's. Their target market, though, is the same, and Glenwood (and other local companies) would do well to focus a little more on their actual ads. No matter how great the product is, if the company can't draw customers in through their advertisements, they won't do as well as they'd like to. (Plus, the money spent on the advertisements which, in the case of Glenwood, is significantly large, will have been spent in vain.)

Influencing Each Other: Society and Advertising

In a culture like ours, where society and advertising are so interwoven, determining whether advertising influences society or vice versa is difficult. To sort it all out, we'd have to trace advertising back to the beginning.

Through the mid-nineteenth century, advertisements served a specific purpose (one house for sale, two horses for sale, etc.) and used no special formatting, typography, or imagery. They were simply text advertising an available item. (And thus society was influencing advertising.)

As items began to be more mass-produced and transactions were conducted less on a person-to-person basis, the advertising industry was created. Companies needed to compete for consumers' business, and so they needed to make their products appear better or more necessary than those of their competitors. The more the advertising industry grew, the more advertisements became an influence on society, instead of a reflection of it. People shopped at certain department stores because of the advertisements they saw; people bought certain brands of soap because of the advertisements they saw.

An 1890s ad for Pears Soap.

Today, advertising and society are trapped in a vicious cycle of influence. Advertisements are created for products consumers demonstrate a desire for, while consumers desire items because they see advertisements for them. Most consumers would feel no need for products like Blu-Ray discs, the MacBook Air, Swiffers, or any other number of popular products if our day-to-day lives weren't inundated with advertisements (both overt and subliminal) touting such products.

The ad for the newest MacBook, the MacBook Air.

References:
American Advertising: A Brief History
Graphic Design: A New History
Media & Culture 5: Chapter 11--Advertising & Commercial Culture

Response: Joanna

I had difficulty posting a comment on Joanna's blog (it said I wasn't a team member...), so I'm posting my response here:

I definitely agree with you that most of the stereotypes in advertisements are gender ones.

I think the cosmetic commercials use the celebrity faces to sell you a dream: if you use their products, you won't just have flawless skin, you'll be as gorgeous, successful, and rich as Queen Latifah, Penelope Cruz, and Drew Barrymore.

As for the food and household commercials featuring only women... don't even get me started! They make me so frustrated.