The Future of Ads | The Future of Advertising

24. May 2010

Experience Prizes Keep Contests Alive

Contests, giveaways and sweepstakes have always been a great way to get a brand in front of a large number of people, but interest in the campaign usually wanes as soon as the winner is announced. To combat that trend, many contests have turned into hunts for the next online cewebrity, where the winner gets a chance to extend their 15 minutes of fame through the sponsor’s social channels (and on the sponsor’s dime) in exchange for extending the life of the campaign in the process.

Hidden ASCII Art Generates Buzz For Dante’s Inferno

12. February 2010

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Hidden ASCII Art Generates Buzz For Dante’s Inferno

When the team behind the Dante’s Inferno video game hid ASCII art in the source code of many popular websites and then waited for that art to get discovered, they were taking a huge risk, but sometimes big rewards can only come to those that are willing to take equally big risks.

8. January 2010

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Gowalla and Incase Team Up For Location-Based Sponsorship

Gowalla, a location-based social network, and Incase, an Apple accessory manufacturer, have teamed up to create one of the first ad campaigns to live exclusively on a location-based social network.

21. December 2009

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Samsung Sponsors NOTCOT With More Than Just A Banner

Samsung's NOTCOT sponsorship is a great example of how a company can go beyond the banner to integrate itself into the uniqueness of a blog and speak directly to that blog’s audience through custom content. It also shows how the continued transition of ad dollars from traditional media into online media will fund new opportunities for advertisers to reach their online audience in new ways as blogs capitalize on the customizability of their medium.

7. December 2009

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POPURLS And UPS Team Up For The Brown Edition

Most companies would love to have people spend a few minutes of each day thinking about their brand, and many pay a lot of money for the privilege. However, paying to put your brand in front of people’s eyes and having people want to look at your brand on a daily basis are two very different things, with the former often leading to brand fatigue while the later leads to a case study and high fives around the office.

3. December 2009

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Columbia Uses Pandora To Create An Experience

By working with companies to integrate their ads into the overall experience, Pandora is able to use their advertising format to create value for both the advertisers and the users.

2. November 2009

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Indie iPhone Developers Collaborate For Character Cameos

One example of the small and scrappy side of advertising is the recent trend among iPhone game developers of collaboration, in which they will swap character cameos as a way of cross-promoting each game to the other game’s audience.

17. August 2009

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Amnesty International Uses Eyeball-Aware Ad To Enhance Message

Amnesty International's bus stop ad is a great example of how interactivity and eyeball-aware ads can be used to engage viewers and add another level of meaning to the overall message.

29. June 2009

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Sharpie Gets Uncapped And Embraces The Social Web

Sharpie’s new Uncapped Gallery is a great example of how a company can embrace the social web, encourage word of mouth and show off what its products can do in the hands of actual customers.

26. June 2009

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Google And Virgin America Spent A Day In The Cloud

For The Day In The Cloud Challenge, Google and Virgin found a commonality in the ‘clouds’ and used that commonality to create a rather compelling campaign.

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