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Viral Marketing to Become the Norm?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the advertisers-working-for-their-bread-and-butter dept.

An anonymous reader writes "One of the oldest advertising companies in the U.S., JWT, has just bought up all the Huffington Post's front-page ad space for a whole week. They are taking the unique approach of trying to create ad content interesting enough to make people want to watch, instead of the traditional ad agency approach of bludgeoning the user base over the head through interstitials and other forced ad techniques. Will the ad companies be able to put forth enough continued effort to make good ads that become viral, or is this just a short phase to gain publicity?"

2 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sorry, but... by zlogic · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing
    Viral marketing it something that is spread by people, not by advertizing agencies. It behaves like a virus - once you release the ad into the wild, it spreads without your control, because people think it's interesting/funny and send it to their friends.

  2. Re:Hmmm by Petrushka · · Score: 3, Informative

    I admit, it's a sight... but to me, it's not advertising: no message is getting through.
    I just see the boobs.

    This kind of marketing can only get people to see the ad; nothing more.

    Unfortunately, that's demonstrably untrue. The whole point of most advertising since the mid-20th century isn't to appeal to people's conscious judgment, but to achieve an effect at a non-conscious level. Just because you don't think it's having an effect doesn't mean that it isn't.

    Take a look at this, this, snd this -- the last link is to an article on Edward Bernays, who pioneered the deliberate use of psychoanalytic techniques in advertising, with the specific aim of bypassing people's conscious judgment.