Elements of Advertising

Ads that Instill Ownership
Advertising once again brought back a concept that keeps surfacing during Vital Ideation- Ownership. Ownership first surfaced during the concept of "sticky ideas" and it makes sense that it would come back during the unit on advertising, because advertising is supposed to be sticky.

The two concepts we discussed were both ones that you could imagine yourself in the situation of. What other types of ads can be sticky? Ads that seem memorable to me are:

1) A flying squirrel ad from the superbowl a few years back. I think 4ish years ago. However, there was a more recent just squirrel ad recently, so no luck on finding a video of it. I think it was just humorous or totally unexpected.


Humorous Ads
2) Those ads that discuss "Real Men of Genious" for a beer company- "I salute you Mr. Taco Salad creator..." I remember these because they're hilarious. I don't in anyway relate to your average beer drinking man.

A few examples:


One that I haven't heard: Notre Dame Fan:

Perhaps they ran it in Indiana where there would be more ownership?

Mr. Giant Taco Salad Inventor:

I have heard this one. It's one of my favorites.

Jorts Inventory:

This one was new to me, too. Maybe they only do this one around fashion people?

Regardless, the ads are hilarious. Youtube "Real Men of Genius" to get more. However, they seem to be funny regardless of who you are. Perhaps this is because they play off stereotypes? Or deal with simple enough items that everyone has heard of them?

They've also made a ton over the last decade:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Men_of_Genius#List_of_Known_Commercials

I've never heard most of these. Perhaps part of their advertising appeal is not flooding a market so you get really excited when one comes on. It makes me want to go buy Bud Light just to show "hey your advertisement is awesome." I think on the whole they have great advertisement- they're the same people who brought us the frogs. Thus humor seems to be a great selling point for Ads.


On the other side, what makes an ad truly awful to hear? I know that there are some ads that I find almost painful to listen to.


Ads that you do not find ownership in
3) One of them is ads for "computer training.com" This ad extols on "how much money are you making? you too can change your life! just take our online skills challenge and if you pass you can pay $30000ish to take our classes and be a Microsoft Certified Professional." The ad makes me angry due to prior context I have- it seems fairly ridiculous to encourage this as a way to learn about computers and change fields. The ad also seems to emphasize a lack of need to work.

Most ads come in on the neutral scale. I'm not sure how much advertising actually effects my purchasing- I tend to inherently distrust it "if you have to advertise, why would I want it?" because good things tend to find their way around through word of mouth by early adopters. I think that might just be part of being young and having friends who like new things.

Ads with a small manipulable piece
4) One neutral, yet memorable ad, was a radio advertisement for Canada. The reason it was memorable wasn't the entire ad content- but simply one little piece. The phone number the ad said one could call for information was "1-800-O-CANADA" This was funny because it led to a conversation including "1-800-O-ELLEN-C" and "1-800-O-GREG-MM" trying to figure out the most ridiculous telephone numbers we could make for ourselves. Past that there was the concept of 1800.coms, so 1800oellenc.com as a viable domain name. As much as this ad didn't give us a sense of ownership- it gave us something vague enough to play with to see where we could take it. So I think being a spring board for more thought also makes a good advertisement.

On the whole I'm still a little skeptical on the advertising front, but it's fun to look at and figure out what elements of ads make them most interesting.