I couldn’t resist sharing this music video for one of my favourite South African bands, Goldfish, that was animated by my friend (since primary school), Mike Scott. Click play and witness the product of creative genius:
Given the difficulties that South African groups have breaking into the global market (ask Just Jinjer), I think that investing in a world-class music video (that people are compelled to watch over-and-over, and show their friends) could really help Goldfish get more airplay on YouTube and international TV stations. Rock on!
We’ve heard for years that online advertising generally isn’t credible, is an annoyance, and that people are becoming adept at ignoring it. The ideal, we’ve heard (and, admittedly, preached) is to engage people in conversations about your company.
Largely, I’d say that the reason for this is that advertisers are treating online advertising as they would print advertising, very little difference in format, except that it clicks through to a landing page.
IBM is doing something interesting with their online advertising though, which I thought would be useful to model if you’re handling the advertising for a large company that often appears in the press: they’re combining the credibility of PR with the control that advertising offers.
As you can see in the ad below (from the NYT online), the advert basically aggregates some recent articles about IBM:
This innovative ad format takes PR and recycles it into a paid advertising that is quite effective. However it competes with more current editorial a reader is likely visiting the site to consume.
Like similar programs from Google, efforts like these unlock the hidden value in thousands of articles deep inside archives. It takes what’s old and makes it monetizable.
Essentially they’re turning archived content into a form of advertising that’s more credible than static, generally poor-performing banners.
UBank Australia has launched a webisode called “Moneybox” that provides financial information in a way that’s easy to undertand and quite funny too:
The first episode has had about 7000 views so far. Not spectacular, but not a bad start either. You can tell by the comments on thier YouTube channel that a lot of people enjoyed it and are looking forward to the next one.
They also participate on Twitter, and have a decent Facebook page with a few fans. I think that their slow but steady approach to social-media is a natural way to acclimatize to an online social-media environment that can be hostile towards brutish corporate entrances.
I'm a Digital Media and Marketing educator based in Cape Town, South Africa.
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