MarketingInsideOut.com

After weeks of speculation, Facebook’s new ad system, dubbed Facebook Ads, was revealed Tuesday. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook’s new technology represents a new era in which commercials are replaced by messages planted in online conversations between friends. Blockbuster, CBS, Sony Pictures, Coca-Cola, Fandango, eBay and Verizon are among the initial partners.

The three-pronged effort launches tonight and will basically allow companies to create their own Facebook pages, which can serve as the spring board for viral apps, and then allow users to add company information and updates to their own profiles and mini feeds. Then there’s an ad system for advertisers and an interface to gather insights into people’s activity on Facebook that marketers care about.

Insights that come from the social network’s members who reveal their purchases, eBay product postings, and other things they’ve done on some 40 Web sites (so far) off-Facebook and have them appear on their profiles. That ultimately can provide advertisers with information to target ads to just the people most likely to be interested.

According to the new release:

Advertising messages will gain distribution through what Facebook has termed the “social graph,” the network of real connections through which people communicate and share information. When people engage with a business’ Facebook Page, that action will spread information about that business through the social graph.

This enables advertisers to deliver more tailored and relevant ads to Facebook users that now include information from their friends so they can make more informed decisions.

Word of mouth (personal referrals) is by far the most persuasive element in product or service selection. Face it, we’re herd animals, and even the skeptics often act on the recommendations of those they know and trust. This is why the Facebook platform could be revolutionary. It could potentially allow marketers to harness this one-to-one trusted recommendation engine.

So the appeal of using people who like a product as brand ambassadors is obvious, but I wonder if there will be diminishing returns if Facebook members’ news feeds end up chock full of paid placements and “friends” feel like shills. The devil will be in the details of how this all actually works.

A few weeks ago in this post, I said I felt Dove and Unilever went too far with the Onslaught video. Good intentions aside, the hypocrisy was just a bit too much for me. I read several accounts of others who felt the same way. And tonight I ran across a a very visual example of the backlash.

This from Christine over at PSFK:

“Filmmaker Rye Clifton offers a response to the film, with a mash-up short of his own called “A Message from Unilever” (view it below). In it, he contrasts the contradictory messages put out by the corporation that owns both Dove and Axe, the latter known for its ads featuring scantily clad sexpots (whose parents apparently didn’t talk to their daughters before the beauty industry did) vying for the attention of horny Axe-sprayed men.”

The message here…Talk to your daughter before Unilever does.

Some wacky work coming out of Belgium. It took me a while to get it. Luckily the journey was pretty interesting. Heck, I even tried out the men’s room just for the experience.

When the “aha!” came, I felt so relieved.

Pretty gutsy for a bank, don’t ya think? And smart. Makes the point in a very unique and fun way (potty humor and all). Think about it. A free online account. Big hairy deal as far as value propositions go. Every company offers one. But this one stands out in the crowd. Obviously catering to the net savvy (and probably younger) prospect. With a good (or warped) sense of humor.

Nice job ING.

But please people, wash your hands!

Few commercials stop me in my tracks and strike me as great. A few I absolutely detest. But for most, I pay little or no attention. Personally, this one fell in the later for me.

I certainly had neither a strong positive nor negative reaction. Mainly, I found myself singing with the music (because I like the song). But I paid little attention to any message in the spot. In fact, until I read Garfield’s review on AdAge, I didn’t even know it was for CVS. I just saw avatars and the animation and assumed it was for some pharma company.

When reading Garfield’s review, I found myself laughing and audibly suggesting some Xanax for both Garfield (who said: You see a lot of bad ads if you watch long enough, but, really, how often it is that you see a TV commercial that makes you want to puke? ) as well as those of the polar opposite opinion who are pissed that he presumed to speak on women’s behalf.

CVS rolled out the spot in early October as part of a $25-million, national campaign to rebrand itself by celebrating and honoring women’s roles as nurturers and caregivers.

According to this story, “CVS conducted research with women — both online and in friendship groups in women’s homes — to better understand their roles. The research found that women make the health-care decisions in their families and are the main caregivers. One in four is a caregiver for people they live with or for a family member of friends. But while women embrace that role, 93 percent felt that no company was helping them in the tasks.”

The “For All Ways You Care” spots will air during programming that targets women ages 35 and up, and the push also includes social networking elements, with a new Web site (ForAllTheWaysYouCare.com) that features the ad and stories submitted by consumers who care for themselves or others.

All I can say is with a $25 million spend…I think SnowPocaAriel is going to be pretty visible out there, so for everyone that seems to hate this spot, get your remotes ready.

Could very well be that Red Sox rookie Jacoby Ellsbury will be best remembered as the player responsible for giving Americans a free taco in the 2007 World Series as a result of stealing second base in the bottom of the fourth inning in the series’ second game.

Taco Bell’s “Steal a Base, Steal a Taco.” promotion was obviously successful. Unless you were under a rock or completely avoided watching the games, you couldn’t have missed the chatter about the promotion. It got plugs from TV anchors and sports figures; a live interview with Rob Savage, chief operating officer of Taco Bell and a promo from a player in a “candid” conversation between Sox shortstop Clayton and Ellsbury the evening before the big steal. If you think about it…all this hype over a stolen base and free taco? Pretty much a sure bet (the stolen base) given that there has been at least one stolen base in every World Series matchup since 1990. And I guess from Taco Bell’s perspective it was a pretty good financial bet as well. Ad Age quoted this: “Advertising buy: $5.6 million. Potential giveaway cost: under $1 million. Publicity value: priceless.”

Remember…you can get your free taco at any of the 5,800 Taco Bell locations on Tuesday between 2pm and 5pm.

I thought the Chevy twist was interesting. Instead of the typical “brought to you by” announcements, it appeared as if they placed a logo for the Malibu sedan on a sign held up by a fan in the stands. From what I read, it sounds like they gathered a group of 50 fans in Fenway a few days before and simulated a game-like situation and then replaced the shot when the camera then appears to zero in live on the excited fan as the announcer reads the standard sponsor message.

But the fans that made out like bandits were those who took Elliot Tatelman of Boston based Jordan’s Furniture (who is a BIG Red Sox fan) up on his special “Monster Deal” promotion where specific furniture purchased in March and April would be free IF the Sox won. And win they did. So now some 30,000 Jordan customers not only get to celebrate the Sox win, but get to reap the benefits…big time. Tatelman is obviously a big Sox fan, but luckily he had insurance in place to cover the $20+ million in rebate checks that will start going out soon.

Companies adopting and/or advocating consumer generated content has become a fairly common approach for advertising messaging. As a way to engage the customer in a relationship with a brand, this approach is one of dialog, not monolog.

While some of the work that comes from this approach contains very genuine ideas, inventive stories and can be a great expression of the brand soul, it’s often a bit rough around the edges from a quality standpoint.

So I wasn’t real surprised to read a story today in the NYTimes.com about Apple and TBWA/Chiat/Day’s remake of a student’s ad for the iPod Touch. 18-year-old English student and Apple devotee named Nick Haley created a spot set to “Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex” by a Brazilian band CSS and uploaded it to YouTube, where it caught the attention of Apple who in turn asked the agency to contact Mr. Haley and create a remake. Below is his original on YouTube.

So here’s this 18 year-old kid, who has never been to the States, who gets to work on a broadcast-ready version of his spot with creative executives at TBWA/Chiat/Day. Pretty cool. And according to the NYTimes story, the agency stayed true to Haley’s concept — just adding the polish.

For a college freshman studying politics, this had to be a pretty awesome experience.

The new spot starts airing this weekend on football games Sunday afternoon, on “Desperate Housewives” and Game 4 of the World Series.

UPDATE 10/29/2007:  Here’s the actual professional remake.

From today’s NYTimes:

Google announced a partnership with Nielsen, the “voice of authority in measuring television audiences, that will give advertisers a more vivid and accurate snapshot than ever before of how many people are viewing commercials on a second-by-second basis, and who those people are.”

A small start, with a portion of the ad sales on the EchoStar DISH network (Google’s been selling these since May), Google can analyze the second by second results of who watched, skipped or changed the channel. And they can provide that data the next day…not days or weeks later. And now, by adding the demographic layer from Nielsen to the raw numbers, Google will have some powerful data that is immensely valuable to the advertiser.

Once advertisers have that kind of measurability from a single cable operator’s network, other cable providers will jump on quickly because advertisers will simply demand it.

Seems to be part of the strategy on the part of Google, and a good one. Google’s leaders are fearless and they are shaking up Madison Avenue. As Dave Morgan, founder and chairman of Tacoda characterized the Google approach in the NYTimes story: “Don’t shake up the market first on addressability, shake it up on measurability.”

Every year only a select few agencies win the coveted ANDY award. It’s entry time again, and this year they’ve included a fun little warm up on the site so you can get your mind around it (basically rejection for most)– InstaCritique.

Just upload some of your work, select a motivation and your work will be judged by the likes of Alex Bogusky, TBWA’s Gerry Graf, la comunidad’s Jose Molla, DDB’s Bob Scarpelli, Mother London’s Mark Waites–not to mention Pete The Landlord of The Owl & The Pussycat.

The judges will trash you, tell you your work is crap or guide you with some advice about how the size of the wheels is related to the quality of the big idea. Probably as good advice as any.

Apparently like this:

Created by Cramer-Krasselt

Never ceases to amaze me what people come up with.

From the Handvertising web site: “We offer advertisers the possibility of campaigning aimed at this target group. Thanks to handvertising you sit literally on the skin of your customers and don’t even have to lift a finger!!”