This past weekend, I witnessed the birth of a new type of ad--an ad for an ad.
I was watching my weekly Sunday afternoon football game when the CareerBuilder.com commercial caught my attention. I had been following its enjoyable monkey ad series for the last several months. But this time the ad wasn't to present the newest episode to the developing storyline; instead it was an ad for the ad series! CareerBuilder.com was advertising the final installments to its evolving monkey ad series on Super Bowl Sunday.
Advertising for an ad? Companies who pioneered the series trend, such as Geico with its caveman series and Kellogg’s with its office series, have been successful. Ad series develop a sense of brand familiarity with consumers and have proven to be a way to increase commercial viewing (if an ad’s entertaining, viewers will be less likely to TiVo past it). Marketing has discovered a new way to brand and emotionally engage the consumer.
Commercials aren’t just everyday advertisements anymore, but 30-second shows. These commercials become a much anticipated product and even grow to have loyal viewer followings. An ad as a product, it’s ingenious.
I agree that the idea of creating and ad for an ad seems to be working. I think they would have drawn even more attention by asking their audience to go on-line and help them design the final installment. Then, they should have encouraged although subtly) the posting of the episodes on Youtube. The additional reach and connection they would have made with their audience would have been the icing on the cake.
Posted by: Ron Hayes | January 29, 2007 at 10:34 AM