I recently viewed this Hardee’s Ad and thought, “Can this be real?” It seems Hardee’s now sells little breakfast items that compete with donut holes. And this ad takes a blind taste-test theme, wherein the participants choose between the “A-holes” and the “B-holes”. (I swear, I’m not kidding)

Now I’ll be the first to admit: normally this sort of humor is right up my alley — I’m the one in the FutureNow office who sees “giggle-value” every time a new iPhone…

...continue to read "Hardee’s b-holes — do they sell?"

HE HAD A VOICE NO LIBRARIAN COULD LOVE – CAUSE HE ALWAYS TALKED LIKE THIS.  But look past the booming voice and easily parodied stage persona of the late Billy Mays and you’ll find an extraordinarily gifted pitch-man, worthy of his own TV show.

A pitch-man whose fame and success made him the target of more pitches than he ever gave.  Pitches made by desperate inventors looking for him to save them after they’d already mortgaged the house, spent the kids’ college…

...continue to read "Billy Mays: If All You Remember is the Voice, You’re Missing Out."

Steve Krug has famously compared Web pages to billboards, meaning that Web visitors are task oriented, and therefore on-the-move.  They click through websites, sizing up any individual page’s content in about as much time as a driver takes to glance up at a billboard, roughly 7 seconds or so.

The difference of course, is that material in the active window is being actively and consciously engaged and evaluated by the Web visitor, who can then slow down and read material that…

...continue to read "Visual Scandal, Story Appeal, and Banner Ads"

Probably the most famous (and successful) banner ad campaign has been the infamous dancing figures banner ads for LowerMyBills.com, with ROI reported to be in the 4:1 range.  The fact that they no longer infest the web with their rational-though destroying antics might be the sole silver lining of the recent financial crises.

But as the ROI figures attest, the ads worked.  And they worked because:

1) The animated movement made them almost impossible to ignore.

This is important because online visitors are…

...continue to read "Apple’s Banner Ad Innovation"

Bryan Eisenberg was recently asked the following question via e-mail:

“I know you are very busy, but I would like your help. I have read your blog(s) about Unique Value Proposition over and over (and others too).  I am perplexed.  How do you distinguish between a Unique Value Propostion and tag line. For example Fedex, ‘When it absolutely positively has to be there overnight’ – tagline or UVP? Your site ‘Keep Your Goals On Target: Increase Conversions, Get More Sales, and…

...continue to read "UVP or Tagline?"

My grandma used to tell us that she was too poor to buy cheap.

Tom Crandall in his iMediaConnection SEO column explains “why the traditional thinking on ‘cheap’ no longer applies”. I think he’s right for several business categories but not all.

Our new service OnTarget is by far the least expensive and most effective proven system for companies to continually improve their conversion rates.

So why don’t we just call OnTarget cheap?

Hmmm… The answer is simple.

We never want the type of client who is…

...continue to read "The Value of Cheap"

I guess it was professional curiosity, but I actually clicked one of those facelift-in-a-bottle ads while visiting some blog.  And hell if I wasn’t intrigued by the landing page’s sleaze-bag persuasive techniques.

Take a look at the screen shot I took of the landing page.  What do you think most caught my eye?  Here’s a hint: think layout and bolding.

Straight out of The Ogilvy Playbook

Here are two relevant quotes taken from pages 73 and 90 of Ogilvy on Advertising:

“When you advertise…

...continue to read "Ogilvy-inspired-but-Sleaze-ified Tricks"

In my tenure here on GrokDotCom, I’ve done a pretty good job avoiding the snarkiness and sarcasm that permeate my whole being.  I open with that so you’ll indulge me on this one

Recently, I went to MySpace.com to look up a semi-obscure band.  Why did I go there instead of my usual search engine query?  Because every band is on MySpace.  If you are a band, and live in the Milky Way solar system, you are on MySpace, and everyone…

...continue to read "Step Right Up and Try the Latest Disruptive Advertising!"

So apparently the Internet Advertising Bureau is dissatisfied with search-based Internet ads.  Seems they want to “overcome perceptions of ‘creative shabbiness’ in online media, and to help prevent the slide toward a ‘performance-based’ Internet advertising economy.”  Ouch.

While I can’t help but shake my head at the elevated nose and depressed intelligence of a dying attitude that associates “performance-based advertising” with creative shabbiness, that’s not what really bothered me about this piece.

What bothered me was two-fold:

1)    The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s confusion…

...continue to read "Let’s Get Rid of Performance Based Marketing, Huh?"

It’s a commonplace on the Internet that the traditional 30-second TV spot is dying.  What with increasing media fragmentation, the new “attention economy,” and TiVo/DVR’s, etc, etc.

Of course, there have always been some level-headed voices of dissent, but it was still interesting to read this bit of research on the effectiveness of fast-forwarded / DVR-ed ads.

Turns out that viewers have to pay attention to their TV Screens in order to fast forward through ads.  A real shocker that one, but…

...continue to read "Early Rumors of Commercial’s Death Greatly Exaggerated"