August 3, 2006

Advertising’s Urban Spam Gets Noticed, Gets Praised

There are a couple of articles in the mainstream media that highlight advertisers attempts to invade our lives - and therefore create Urban Spam (in our opinion). Business week reports on ‘Ad Placement Extreme‘:

Look for publicity messages on everything from eggs to air-sickness bags as companies compete for offbeat niches to create that extra bit of buzz… Advertisers have long searched for ways to stand out by doing something out of the ordinary, even a little strange… Don’t expect these types of advertisements to go away. The free publicity and buzz they generate is enough to guarantee that someone is working on the next weird ad space. After all, these ads garner “much more attention and they’re not even paying [extra] for it,” says [John Condon, chief creative officer of Leo Burnett USA].

The Baltimore Sun reports on ‘The new advertising age’

Companies are among those using any means necessary in the hyper-frantic global battle to grab consumer attention and dollars. With more than $270 billion spent on ads in the United States alone last year — and about $570 billion worldwide — experts say there’s very little ground left that advertisers haven’t conquered.

“It’s hard to imagine where advertising doesn’t appear nowadays,” says Erik Gordon, a Johns Hopkins University marketing professor. “You can make an argument that the whole world has become an ad. Nothing is sacred anymore. It even appears in my dreams, my bad dreams.”