The Future of Ads

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Carl’s Jr. Uses YouTube Stars For Online Video Success

One of my advertising rules of thumb is this: Content that works well online is not the same as content that works well on television. To see why, let’s look at Carl’s Jr.’s latest ad campaign for their Portobello Mushroom Six Dollar Burger.

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Dunlop Loops Its Way To Video Success

Tire ads aren't known for being fun or sexy, and usually rely on safety stats and a general feeling of 'that tire won't explode while I'm driving' to motivate you to buy. It doesn't have to be that way however, and Dunlop's recent campaign is just one example of what's possible.

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