CCT356

Online Advertising and Marketing

Pick **two** instances of an existing online advertising/marketing campaign and critique their design and approach. Who is their target audience? What are they trying to advance? When did you see this campaign, and where? What techniques did they use? Do you believe they were effective? Why/why not? Post this on your personal wiki.
 * Online Advertising Critique (due Feb 7, 15%) **

The following youtube clip may have been a SuperBowl ad several years ago, I never really looked into it. For viewers like myself, the advertisement exists on a different medium. From a semiotics perspective, the aura of the original broadcast was long extinguished, and with its reincarnation on youtube, a brand new aura emerged.

media type="youtube" key="elBx5lbnCe0" width="425" height="350" The clip opens with a weary foreign travler happening upon a temple in a mystical Asian setting--or perhaps he intentionally sought tutelage there and was finally arriving at his destination? Upon arriving, he find the entire courtyard full of deciples hard at training. The entire courtyard freezes as the master emerges, he bows and extend both his hands palms up. The travlers return the gesture and extend his hands palms down. The master schools him in a game of 'slapsies' and quickly put him through training.

A montage of his bitter training follows, showing senior disciples correcting his techniques, him wincing in pain, and the master shaking his head at his slow progress. Perseverence eventually prevails as the montage continues to show him perfecting his form in horse-riding stance, training with a harsh senior disciple, practicing alone on a hand dummy wheel, and soaking his battered hands in cold water to ease the pain. Until one day, he was able to surpass his senior brother-in-training, even the master nods his approval as he looks on.

Finally, the travler is able to relax and enjoy a can of Mountain Dew, but instead offers it to his master as he approaches. The travler one-ups the master, only to realize it was the master who one-upped him. The video then closes with their familiar slogan at the time: do the dew.

I recently saw this video on youtube randomly. I would imagine the target audience is anyone who happens to enjoy drinking stuff... particularly softdrinks. The story is familiar and archtypical, and we note how unconventional it is for a commercial to incorporate so much detail and so little product placement. For these reasons, the video was able to headfake its viewers into associating Mountain Dew with the shear epicness of the story it told in its commercial.

A bit more subliminal, the clip opens with mystical imagery, adding to the myth built around Mountain Dew. Also, for its comedic value alone, the video clip is able to live on after its inception as a relic on youtube

Next, I will commentate on this eccentric character's unique approach to advertising his YouTube channel and the gaining referrals to video games he plays: media type="youtube" key="XMF6sTQ7dLM" width="425" height="350"

Target audience: gamers, potential gamers.

Very successful, and again humour was key, camouflaging its true purpose.

In making light of the shortcoming of at the same time, this can backfire

The advertiser was trying to gain more viewers and subscribers on youtube, and the game referral link he posted in the youtube description gives him in-game bonuses. It is akin to referring your friends on facebook to visit your farm on farmville, and youtube videos such as this one is a much more effective method of gaining referal bonuses than annoying all of your friends.


 * 2. Online Ad Design (due Feb 28, 15%) **

Based on course readings and discussion, design an ad campaign for a client of your choosing. (This client can be a prototype/fake client.) The ad campaign should have three forms of advertising and the campaign/messaging/style should be consistent among them all (i.e., someone who sees a banner ad and a skyscraper ad should find it clear from design and copy that it's the same campaign.) This will be posted on your personal wiki. A short (2 page) write up that outline your design decisions and challenges should accompany the submissions.

For my Ad design I decided to take a shot at getting more people to play League of Legends (LoL) with me.

The ad campaign overall was met with some success (so far):



At first, I experimented with the traditional ‘personal selling’ style technique, attempting to appeal to my friends over social networking platforms. Unfortunately, this was met largely with an ‘screw off Vince, we don’t want go visit your farm’ attitude.

Then, I shifted my focus towards people with potential gaming interest, such as those who squander their time with facebook games. By segmenting the target market, I was able to garner greater interest.

This was not enough, there was nothing flashy or shiny for people to click on. Ah, here we go, here's something shiny for people to click on:

[|Clicky Here!]

That's the end goal, but the link by itself is nowhere near appealing enough for people to want to click on it. For all they know, it could be a credit card scam or pyramid scheme or whatever malicious thing their imaginative and paranoid mind can conjure up.

I took a shot at designing my own graphical ad.





And there you have it, everybody wins!

PS. Anyone just stumbling upon page, feel free to play with me, we get to make things go boom or hunt noobs, or both if you prefer, good times shall be had.