Adtasm.com | Ads in Media

I wrote about this particular Internet phenomenon before, but I decided to highlight one successful campaign that used the power of the Internet to generate some viral buzz. This video was an illustration in the possibilities of viral marketing and one of the factors that put Youtube.com on the map in 2006.

Dove, in 2005, started a campaign that highlighted “real” woman, as opposed to the overly anorexic wisps of air that we see normally in commercials, print ads, and the like. Seth Stevenson, in a Slate.com article critiquing the campaign, noted overall the short term prognosis was excellent, but that on the whole that:

Sadly, this is not a winning play for the long haul. If Dove keeps running ads like this, women will get bored with the feel-good, politically correct message. Eventually (though perhaps only subconsciously), they’ll come to think of Dove as the brand for fat girls. Talk about “real beauty” all you want—once you’re the brand for fat girls, you’re toast.

A bit of a change in direction was expected to keep the message fresh, but the overall message was clear: beauty is often manufactured. Along those lines, a viral video was created by Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto, which had massive exposure in all avenues and media.

Synopsis: A plain woman steps into a studio for a photo shoot. The timing is increased, ever so frantically, showing the process in which the woman is made to look better for the billboard her photo will be placed on, from the make-up artists, to the photoshopping of the woman’s features.

Bonus: Here is a parody video, amongst many on Youtube.com, that kept the original video exposed and talked about for many months after.

They’re watching you… every click you make from bathrobes to adult sites Google is keeping track. Or at least for 18 - 24 months so says the latest Google blog addressing privacy issues. In attempts to calm the paranoid masses concerned with Google’s retention of user data geared to personalize searches Google has posted an official statement on The Official Google Blog site. They’ve also included a list of “reasons why we should collect your data and keep it”

We have a legitimate interest in retaining search server logs for a number of reasons:

• to improve our search algorithms for the benefit of users
• to defend our systems from malicious access and exploitation attempts
• to maintain the integrity of our systems by fighting click fraud and web spam
• to protect our users from threats like spam and phishing
• to respond to valid legal orders from law enforcement as they investigate and prosecute serious crimes like child exploitation; and
• to comply with data retention legal obligations.

Looks like they forgot “because we own the internet, and soon we’ll own you and there isn’t anything you can do about it, so quit complaining or we’ll email your mom a list of the sites you’ve been viewing.”

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Complain enough and someone’s bound to hear… and maybe even do something about it. That’s just what the fine folks at Google have done. To appease the woes of the common Adsense marketers Google has announced their upcoming launch of the brand spanking new Placement Performance report. Marketers can now get an in depth view of where their ads are being placed as well as site performance metrics to better gauge ad performance. Oh, Google you really are a marketer’s wet dream. You can get the full story at Clickz.com.