Ads

This file contains short items on the following:

• phantom TV ads in stadiums
• worldwide trends
• ads an Adbuster would love
• the worst ads of the year
• lying ads
• shock ads
• Vatican ads
• best ads of all time
• ad-writing tips
• ads everywhere
• which ads work
• "new and improved"

Phantom ads

Nowadays, athletes and stadiums are covered in ads. But are they really there? The Wall Street Journal reports that, thanks to computer graphics technology, broadcasters can make ads that appear to sit on the wall behind home plate. But these phantom ads can only be seen by home viewers. You can get a half-inning's exposure for about the cost of a regular ad, and broadcasters can better deliver target markets.

Worldwide ads

If the Cannes International Advertising Festival is anything to go by, mood and image are what count in today's hottest new ads. A reel of 125 prize commercials came to Ottawa on November 25, 1999. And, as usual, the most over-the-top commercials are coming from outside North America. International themes include anal sex, nose-picking and Down's Syndrome. The tamer Canadian entries included Pillsbury Pizza Pops, whose adds include product that literally explodes with filling.

Ads that even an Adbuster could love

We have often exposed what we see as unethical practices in the advertising, marketing and PR business. However, by the same token, professionals in these fields do a lot of good, as well.

In the Globe and Mail (July 19, 1999), John Heinzl discusses a campaign in Time magazine's Canadian edition. Called Power of Print, it involves $1 million in free ad space, given over to ad agencies to promote anything except commercial products or services.

In a similar American campaign, for example, two blind children of different races were used to show that "the blind are also colour blind."

The ads let creative shops strut their stuff, allow Time to promote the power of advertising and help a lot of worthwhile causes along the way.

The worst ad of 1997

There is low and then there is really low.

In its campaign to get a free stadium from the government, the Minnesota Twins ran a TV ad warning, "If the Twins leave Minnesota, an eight-year-old boy from Wilmar [a local municipality] undergoing chemotherapy will never get a visit from [player] Marty Cordova."

And as if that wasn't tacky enough, it turns out the eight-year-old was from out of state &ldots; and already dead. Worse still, the Twins got the footage of the dying boy under false pretenses, having promised to use it to promote the team's community activism.

Don't blame us, we lied

In Marketing News, columnist Herbert Rotfeld described some weird cases in which defendants claimed that they were not responsible for their promotions, because they weren't telling the whole truth anyway.

Harley-Davidson once claimed that its safety guards would prevent all serious accidents. When it was sued, it argued that the claim was so vague that it could have been referring to the motorcycles, rather than to the people riding them.

Shock ads get the job done

A June 7, 1997 feature in the Globe and Mail noted that advertisers are using increasingly shocking ads to cut through the clutter.

· Candie's, a women's shoe company, boosted sales 19 per cent with ads featuring bimbo de jour Jenny McCarthy sitting on a toilet.

· Sega not only invited teen game players to join a mock religious cult, but created a mock Christian organization to oppose itself.

· Manager Jeans included giant inflated sex dolls on its Toronto and Montreal bill-boards.

· Labatt Ice is being advertised in Quebec with pictures of deformed carrots that look like penises.

Rick Smith designs condom ads for Canada's #2 ad agency, MacLaren McCann. Says Smith, "If I'm advertising to a 25-year-old, I'm expecting in many cases that it will offend a 50-year-old."

No wonder the Canadian Advertising Foundation upheld complaints against 19 ads in 1996, double the number upheld in 1995.

Vatican takes stand on ads

The Vatican has come out against advertising that makes "deliberate appeals to such motives as envy, status-seeking and lust" and that is designed to "shock and titillate by exploiting content of a morbid, perverse, pornographic nature."

Ironically, the Pontifical Council for Social Communications has produced its booklet at the very time when advertisers are being more careful with their ads. Howls of outrage forced Calvin Klein to drop a jeans campaign designed to look like child pornography and the Canadian Advertising Foundation has decided to blow the whistle on those who violate the foundation's voluntary standards.

Ad Age and EW pick 50 best

Both Advertising Age and Entertainment Weekly have listed the 50 best TV commercials. We link to the articles to our TV ad trivia game.

Ad-writing guidelines

Classified Communication , a Prescott, Arizona, newsletter, suggests these tips for ad copywriters.

• Fill in this blank: the purpose of this ad is to ____.
• Picture your readers across your desk and write as if speaking to them.
• Pick vivid, action-oriented words.
• Use short sentences.
• Edit out anything that doesn't build interest or encourage action.
• Read your copy aloud.
• Let the ad sit overnight and review it in the morning for typos.

Ads, ads, everywhere, part one

Talk about your X-Files. While Mulder and Scully are investigating conspiracies, they may wonder how corporations have sneaked product placements onto their show. Not only has MMI Product Placement sneaked Polaroid into The X-Files and Psi Factor, but it also put Molson products all over Hard Core Logo and convinced Traders to feature Ballatine's Scotch, Nortel phones and Visa.

Sometimes, stories are rewritten to give more prominence to products. In fact, Space Jam is the first movie that was designed, first and foremost, as a marketing vehicle. The plot and story were very much secondary to the potential spinoffs.

As MMI president Philip Hart wrote in Marketing, product placement suggests an "implied third-party endorsement," builds brand awareness and protects the hidden ads from fast-forward buttons.

Ads, ads, everywhere, part two

Is anything safe from ads? Apparently not. It's bad enough that Walt Disney has bought space on our stamps, or that whole buildings and subway trains have been repainted to promote Levi's Silver Tab jeans, but according to the Globe and Mail, the worst is yet to come:

• powerful projectors will beam animated ads into the night sky;
• ads will appear on debit cards;
• more ads will appear on store floors, on shopping carts and in bathroom stalls; and
• more ads will be printed on yellow sticky notes and put on the front pages of newspapers.

Which ads work

Elsewhere, we warn against excessive positivism. The same holds true for ads. At the University of Guelph, consumer studies professor Karen Findlay studied why people remember certain ads, and what facts they remember from the ads.

She found that "ads that describe incongruities are often more effective than ads that stress only positive points." This is because incongruities encourage people to think more about what an ad is saying, and because the two-sided argument is more credible.

New and improved

The detergent Tide has been improved more than 90 times since 1945. One hates to imagine how bad it must once have been!

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