Just as last year, I’m posting my own ranking of the best Super Bowl video commercials (this time I’m doing 5, not 3 like last year). However, in 2011 I’m happy to have a chance to do it not after the big game, but seven hours before it. Thanks to Mashable, we know which video ads we’re gonna see well before the Super Bowl.

So, 6.5 hours before the start of the big game, here’s my ranking of the top 5 video ads, these 1-minute-or-under masterpieces:

#5 — Careerbuilder “Parking Lot” commercial

#4 — Kia Optima “One Epic Ride” ad

#3 — Doritos “Pug Attack” commercial

#2 — Volkswagen “The Force” video ad

#1 — Cars.com “The Reviews Are In” commercial

Have my picks matched yours?

Yesterday I was looking for an all-inclusive Jamaica vacation to book for two adults and one child. I went to Expedia, set my search parameters, and one of the most attractive matches was Hilton Rose Hall Resort and Spa:

Very attractive price (at least one-third less expensive than that of its other competitors in the area), great location, great hotel ranking/reviews. However, when I got to the checkout process I noticed this:

“Wow! Wait a second!” — I thought. $70 per night multiplied by 11 nights equals $770 on top of the final price I’m seeing! Wow… Then they aren’t really as competitive as I first thought.

Two points in this regard:

1) I went to the hotel’s official site to tried booking with them directly, and got exactly the same message:

Why not charge it upfront? Of course, I understand, this makes you look attractive on the list of all other hotels (on Expedia, Travelocity and other similar websites) that show you the full price up front, but what if someone doesn’t notice the “fine print”? What a disappointed traveller that would be!

2) Hotel room for 2 adults on the all-inclusive package costs about $1200:

That works out to be some $600 per adult. Now, for a 7-year-old child Hilton charges $770 on top of that?! Hmmmmmm…

Needless to say that I went with another resort in the same area. I did pay them more than what Hilton originally quoted me. But still it ended up being less than what they would charge me with their “$70 per child per night” policy. Hilton Rose Hall may want to rethink their pricing strategy.

I have recently noticed a banner on a blog run by a fellow marketer. You can see it on your left now.

Each word on the banner carries an enormous power, and all of them together — a powerful emotional message. We are told that this will happen — “4,500 kids will die today.” We are not called to click on the banner, but most of us will. The message is too powerful for us to ignore it.

When we click on the banner we land on a website of charity: water — a “non-profit bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations.” It’s a great cause, and I am fully supportive of what they do. But I have a problem with that little 125×125 banner.

The approach used while creating the banner isn’t new. Talking of a campaign against abortion in his Effective Advertising: Understanding When, How, and Why Advertising Works (2004) Gerard J. Tellis wrote that images which “arose strong feelings of horror and guilt among viewers” were used in it “to win immediate converts to the cause”  (p. 150).

But is such approach effective? It depends on what your end goal is.

Describing the emotional component of such tactic in his The Marketing Power of Emotion (2003) John O’Shaughnessy wrote:

Negative emotions like guilt and shame exercise greater hold that positive emotions like pride because they tend to impose themselves on the mind as they are less optional emotions that (say) joy. (p. 101)

Then he also added an important observation:

…the emotion of guilt can serve as a substitute for action as an indirect way of satisfying perceived obligations to take action without actually doing so [underlining mine].

This is problem #1 with that banner — its creators certainly don’t want the emotion itself to “serve as a substitute” of the action (be it creating awareness of the problem among others, donating to the cause, etc).

Problem #2, in my opinion, is that the wording as it is now sounds like a death sentence. While it is still likely produce the desired action, it conveys a meaning of hopelessness, on the one hand; and on the other hand, when I click it, decide to participate, and even do something, a bitter aftertaste doesn’t go away.

This same organization has a 300×250 pixels banner, which looks somewhat better (having a clear call to action on it):

But the message could still use improvement. Changing the wording into “Help prevent 4,500 child deaths every day” would have been more effective, in my opinion.

What do you think (and feel)?

The transitive verb “to mimic” has several definitions, but the first two listed in the Webster’s dictionary are (i) to imitate closely, and (ii) to ridicule by imitation. Semantics is one of my favorite branches of linguistics; and when I look at the below picture I really don’t know which of these two definitions suits it best, but this image is certainly one of the best illustrations of mimicking:

What would BMW itself do?

They’d be innovative: both in essence (technology), and in shape/appearance (from design to advertising). The infamous billboard fight between Audi and Santa Monica’s BMW comes to mind:

Are you mimicking in your marketing, or being innovative? While some talk about replicating successes of others, I believe that achieving the real success comes from perfecting what it was that lead to their successes, taking things one step further, opening truly new horizons, and adding value in the way that was previously un- or under-utilized.

I’ll be honest with you: I haven’t watched one second of the Super Bowl. I was shoveling my snow after the super snow weekend. I’m just not a big fan of (American) football (I’m a soccer man). What I did watch, however, were all of the Super Bowl commercials. Those that know me, know that I’m a big fan of well-put-together-ads, and here’s my personal rating of the top three Super Bowl 2010 ones:

#3 – Bridgestone “Whale of a Tale” commercial

#2 – Doritos “House Rules” commercial

#1 – Volkswagen “PunchDub” commercial

Have I not picked your favorite ones? If so, feel free to post about them in the comments area blow.

Back in July in my Global Advertising to Shrink, Online Marketing to Grow post I quoted Forrester’s report on US Interactive Marketing Spend which projects a substantial growth of digital marketing in the course of the next 4 years. As this year is coming to an end, it seems appropriate to look into the future, and see what the next years hold for us.

In this post I would like to draw your attention to one interesting table from that Forrester’s report. In it we see that the top 7 interactive channels which are expected to increase in their marketing effectiveness are:

1. Created social media
2. Online video
3. Search engine optimization
4. Mobile marketing
5. Paid placements in social media
6. Email marketing
7. PPC marketing

Here’s that graph:

Very helpful info which tells us what areas to keep an eye on.

And do not be surprised that you do not see affiliate marketing on the list. It’s not a channel, but rather a form of marketing which is broader than any one channel. It encompasses all of the above-quoted channels, and should not be singled out in the above chart.

A few days ago a Toronto-based affiliate marketer, Lorne Fade, has published an ad spending infograph based on Nielsen AdRelevance data. Among other things the infograph reflected the distribution of the top advertisers (by impressions and spend) on Facebook:

A day earlier IKEA published a video on how they are using Facebook by kidnapping the platform’s “most popular function” — that of tagging photos — and getting people to spread the word about IKEA’s products via “via profile pages, the newsfeed, and links”. Why would people tag products, thereby spreading the word? Because whoever tagged a product on a showroom picture first, won it! More about simple, yet ingenious marketing move, in the video itself:

Within just one week, this video has been watched by over 37,000 viewers, while at the time of this post Gordon Gustavsson of IKEA has only 724 friends on Facebook. The friends of friends and other marketers are obviously watching.

Note that you will not find IKEA on the above-quoted list of the top Facebook spenders. Does this mean that their advertising on Facebook is less effective? Of course, not! The above example shows that thinking outside the box can at times be much more effective than pouring millions of dollars into your advertising.

In the past I have heard someone emphasize that to think “outside the box” you gotta first understand what’s in the box. IKEA took an already available idea/tool, and applied a truly outside-the-box thinking to transform it into a tool for viral marketing. Way to go, IKEA!

I love beautifully created ads, and one of them was shown to me by my wife as she was browsing through the September issue of the “Parent & Child” magazine this morning. It’s an ad by Nestle, and it’s for their new snack size Drumsticks (they call the new product – Lil’ Drums). It requires the reader’s participation (you’re invited to stick your fingers through the holes in the page) to add maximum effectiveness to the ad. Here is what the page with the “actual ultra-cute size” sundae cone looks like when the reader participates:

And on the back of the above page they offer a $1.00 coupon, and do it in a similar way:

Isn’t this ingenious? Fun and vivid. Certainly brings the product (and the deal!) alive for me. Way to go, Nestle!

I love beautifully created ads, and one of them was shown to me by my wife as she was browsing through the September issue of the “Parent & Child” magazine this morning. It’s an ad by Nestle, and it’s for their new snack size Drumsticks (they call the new product – Lil’ Drums). It requires the reader’s participation (you’re invited to stick your fingers through the holes in the page) to add maximum effectiveness to the ad. Here is what the page with the “actual ultra-cute size” sundae cone looks like when the reader participates:

And on the back of the above page they offer a $1.00 coupon, and do it in a similar way:

Isn’t this ingenious? Fun and vivid. Certainly brings the product (and the deal!) alive for me. Way to go, Nestle!

Interesting forecast data (on global advertising vs interactive marketing) has been published a few days ago by Forrester Research and ZenithOptimedia.

Here is my summary:

• Global advertising market is expected to decline 8.5% this year (North America – 10.3%)
• Overall advertising budgets will decline as well
• In 2009 newspaper ad spend will drop 14.7%, magazines – 16.7%, TV – 7.1%, outdoor – 7%
• Interactive marketing, on the other hand, is expected to grow
• In 2009 Internet ad spending will grow 10% globally
• By 2011 Internet spending is expected to account for 15% of all ad outlays
• By 2014 digital marketing spend will hit nearly $55 billion
• Search marketing share will continue to be around 60% mark
• Social media marketing share to grow from 2.8% to 5.7%
• Social media marketing spend will grow most (more than fourfold)

All of this is good news both for advertisers, and for us, online marketers. As Shar VanBoskirk of Forrester has pointed out “with dollars moving out of traditional media toward less expensive and more efficient interactive tools, marketers will actually need less money to accomplish their current advertising goals.”

For further details see the July 2009 ZenithOptimedia Adspend Forecast [PDF file here], as well as the Forrester’s Five Year Forecast [PDF for sale here] and Shar’s blog post on Forrester.com.