Clever, but tasteless…

Found around the Pyrmont area, these Lost signs are actually subversive advertising for the new dating website Meet My Friend.

lost

And while it certainly catches your eye (which I guess is the whole point), it stretches the friendship when you realise that it’s not some poor sod whose gone missing, but some start-up looking for clients. It seems I’m not the only one who feels this way either.

Reaction
It’s the name of the game I guess. Illicit a reaction from the viewer, in the hope that they will tell their friends what they saw. Increase brand awareness at minimal cost. Viralness. And if you look it at it from that point of view, it certainly works. After all, im blogging about it, so it got me talking/thinking/reacting didn’t it?

However, beside the fact im married, this kind of advertising would not lead me to actually use the service. If this kind of guerrilla campaign turns people 50/50, then id be in the camp that get turned away, not towards. My 2 cents.

Interactive billboard

This is something I’ve not seen before, at least not in Sydney. In Pitt St Mall, NAB (a bank in Australia) have erected a billboard on the back of a public telephone, that invites users to interact with it.

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I probably paid closer attention to it than I usually would, as one of my colleagues at work is currently completing his final semester at UTS, and his project (titled Poster 2.0), while not necessarily directed at the advertising industry, certainly touches (boom boom) on the concept of display systems that are designed specifically to be interacted with. From that point of view, I was intrigued to see how others in the mall would deal with this very unassuming interactive piece.

The premise

The billboard is setup like a public survey. There is an area where a yes/no question is put to the public, a tally is displayed, and interactin sought (vvia a simple yes/no touch device below). The results are displayed instantly, and the tag-line is “Live life at a great rate.”

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Observations

I watched as several people took at least a minute or two to come to grips with the concept. More than half didn’t get it – that is, they stared, waiting for something to change. Obviously the invite wasn’t clear enough for them. One guy did eventually pluck up the courage to engage, and as soon as he chose “Yes” to the question “Have you ever lost money in Vegas”, the billboard updated the count, and he had a bit of a chuckle, and walked off. Result? Not sure…

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Opinion

I don’t completely understand the communication of the Billboard. Take for example the following : “Have you ever lost money in Vegas : No (see below).” And then below : “Live life at a great rate.” Is this suggesting that only those people who haven’t lost money before are the ones that NAB want as customers? (The yes’s were more than the no’s when I was there…) I also wonder how much effort is going into placing and maintaining this billboard, vs how much actual new customers NAB are actually going to get. Perhaps, though, this is not the purpose of this sort of interface – is it’s job is merely to engage?

I did enjoy the subtlety of the display however – it didn’t initially jump out and grab you, it made you look twice, and even made you try and understand it – that sort of brand time is definitely worth something, though I don’t know how you quantify it.

Anyway, interesting regardless – and I think something that will become more and more common given time.

Political advertising and the web

Regardless of if you think NSW is “heading in the right direction” politically, by now most NSW constituents would probably be (as I am) grateful that we are in a political advertising blackout. So why is it, then that SMH.com.au (and probably other) websites are still displaying annoying political banner ads?

Heading in the right direction!
Screenshot taken from SMH.com.au

From The Australian Electorial Commission :

Under Schedule 2 of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, which is administered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), election advertising in the electronic media is subject to a ‘blackout’ from midnight on the Wednesday before polling day to the end of polling on the Saturday. This three-day blackout effectively provides a “cooling off” period in the lead up to polling day, during which political parties, candidates and others are no longer able to purchase time on television and radio to broadcast political advertising.

So why doesn’t this law cover internet advertising? …perhaps the Pollies like the freedom this technical loophole gives them to harass us right until we mark that little box on Sunday. The site this ad points to is no better either. Except for the tiny “Authorised by” line, it eeks of the kind of campaign that’s been looked into in the past.

And let’s not get into the legitimacy of placing political ads like these on a news website (let alone TV stations, radio stations or any of the other “traditional” media outlets). The only saving grace is that the ad doesn’t appear to run while your in the nsw 07 election sub domain.

I’ll be glad when Sunday has come and gone… then at least the rest of Australia can start to enjoy the spin and lead up to the Federal Election!