In a former life, car ads were all about the boot space, how many kids you could cram in, how many miles to the gallon, how much the tax would be, the safety standards…
If there’s one way of making your car advert stick out, it’s got to be including a performance like the above from glass harpist Petr Spatina.
Here’s another clip of him performing live on a foreign talent show, you’ll need to forward on about 2 minutes or so for the live performance.
As some of you may know I’m directing (and appearing in) Cannibal! The Musical next week in Kilkenny. Given that we’re going all out on the promotion front (there should be severed bloody hands clutching press releases on various desks at Hot Press, The Irish Times, national and regional radio stations and more) with our press releases, posters, leaflets, costume walk abouts, the next thing to hit is the radio advertising which runs for the week of the show.
Yours truly was given the task of assembling the ad, 20 seconds in length which it turns out is due in the radio station (KCLR96FM, Kilkenny / Carlow) tomorrow morning for scheduling in next week’s calendar.
So with about an hour, a cup of tea, an SM58, a Xenyx 502 hooked into my Creative Audigy 2ZS card (recording on the PC) and a copy of Audition for some processing work I’ve banged out the following after a few rounds of various scripts and takes. Having the dual monitor setup – recording on one screen, reading script from other – pays off.
I will say one thing, it ain’t easy trying to squeeze loads of information into a 20 second clip.
Here’s the clip itself (or a take of it anyway)… If anyone is recording a podcast this week and wants to drop it into their show it’d be great. I’ll gladly return the favour on the next Sound System Podcast (this week’s one available from since yesterday).
The Devious Theatre Company – Cannibal! Radio Advert
[audio:http://www.devioustheatre.com/ads/cannibal-final-ad.mp3]
Earlier this year when Google were snapping up FeedBurner, Microsoft were laying the foundations to buy up aQuantive.
Yesterday they did just that, closing the deal that see’s the software giant splash a grand total of US$6bn (six billion dollars folks). The aQuantive board have resigned, the stock as been delisted from NASDAQ and Microsoft are now in complete control. Figures touted around put online advertising in the US$40bn bracket so paying $6bn to take a big step forward in terms of online advertising is a slight bit overwhelming – especially considering that Google picked up Doubleclick for half that amount.
Seriously though… six billion quid? Should certainly help with their behavioural advertising approach…
Had to laugh when I saw this one this morning, it comes from another blog I’m running. Guess they’re picking up on my name in there but the ad is well out of place.
If you’re interested, this is the blog its from. Not every tech fan’s cup of tea. Its something thats getting back off the ground after a re-launch just over a week ago.
…Yahoo can at least try and match.
Since Google paid an extortionate amount of money for the DoubleClick ad network in recent weeks, Yahoo has seen fit to acquire Right Media for the princely sum of US$680m. Yahoo had previously invested $45m in Right Media last year.
Keeping up with the Jones’ eh? Bless these “search engine” wars…
Starting to look his age but this is possibly one of the best ads I’ve seen in a while.
Is there anyone in the Irish blogosphere who is making a healthy revenue from AdSense? And by healthy revenue I mean at least three figures a month. I know of one such individual who happened to mention his Adsense revenue at the last Bar Camp in Waterford but beyond that, is anyone else happy with their Adsense revenue stream?
Had been hoping this one would turn up online… then it did. (edit: Pat’s also got it – the ad that is!)
Word at the weekend was once the iPhone hits the US it will likely be in the $300-$400 contract price bracket. I know that US contracts work a little different, many starting out in the minimum-24-months category but that price sounds the phone will be a little more affordable. Highly doubt that any Irish network will carry the phone which means you could end up forking out anywhere up to 700 quid for it when it reaches European shores, sim-free that is. Now might be a good time to start saving those pennies.
Just out of interest, if you serve ads on your blog, who or what is your preferred means of advertising excluding Google’s Adsense…?
Personally, I prefer AdSense out of the lot, always seems to produce the better, more targeted ads. If I was to go beyond that I’d say Amazon. But thats just me…
Still a few hours left in Valentines day and I’ve just noticed the KilkennyMusic.com blog is showing Christmas ads through Adsense. I reviewed the entire content of the single page post and nowhere in the post, links off the menus, feeds or comments does it mention the word Christmas!
The word ‘holidays’ appears just once, but in relation to ‘mid term holidays’.
Still… if I act now, I could get ten Christmas cards for four quid and same myself a lot of hassle in ten months time. Then again, I’d have to click my own ad and Google sure don’t like that!
This little kid knows how to get things done… I’m no United fan but fair play to the ad agency, its a good un.
Check it out at Creative Commercials….
*tip, if you’re having trouble blogging any of their videos, wrap a set of < object > tags around their embed html.
Not that you are “reviewing things in a nice way” but its a nice way to get paid to review – ReviewMe. Yesterday evening after mentioning earlier in the week that TLA were getting picked up by Mediawhiz, an email arrives in from TLA alerting me to Reviewme.com, mentioning that I had been preapproved for the publisher system.
So what is Reviewme? In effect, another site that allows you to earn revenue from reviewing products. Of course, you’re allowed call products or web services as you see them….
We do not allow advertisers to require a positive review. The vast majority of reviews are measuredly positive, although many do contain constructive criticism. We view this as a bonus: how else can you quickly and cheaply get feedback on a product or service from influencers?
You’re driving traffic to the advertiser’s site, and in return you’re getting a little something for yourself (namely 50% of the revenue for the review).
Now, recently I was approached by another blog network to review X amount of links. I could request X links and be paid $5 per post, my posts having to be written within 48 hours of receiving the links (per link – i.e. 2 links = 4 day, 5 links = 10 days etc). In that situation, I would have to blog about plastic surgery in order to get accepted, but could receive better opportunities if I wanted to blog about dogs. For a group that said they were impressed by my technology and Irish related posts, what the hell would readers want with plastic surgery and dogs?
So you join Reviewme (not an affiliate link) and you’re entering a market place, exactly as TLA (Text Link Ads by the way). Sign up as a publisher or advertiser and if you’re approved you can start earning right away. The site’s interface is pleasant, easy to get around and lays everything on the table for you.
The payout is reasonable as well, I log in and see that on one particular blog, its worth is $40 per post, with $20 coming to me. $20 a post is a sure way better than a fiver a post, and you still get to select what you want. You do of course have to disclose that your post is a paid or sponsored post and you must meet a minimum word count of 200 words, but if you’re used to writing articles and reviews then it shouldn’t be of any problem to you.
So far the categories are plentiful, with Technology blogs and Web Development looking like they’re leading the way which can’t be too bad a thing!
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post
Excerpt from a mail this afternoon…
Text Link Ads Inc will be joining forces with MediaWhiz. This will bring some exciting changes to our platform. Here is how this will benefit you in the coming months…
Publishers: by leveraging MediaWhiz’s agency relationships and sales staff we will be able to sell more ad space on your website. We also will be adding the ability to monetize your website in new ways including: CPA offers and CPM display advertising.
Advertisers: TLA will be working with MediaWhiz to offer new ways to drive traffic and sales to your website including: email marketing, CPA offers, CPM display ads and more!
Nice one, another good webservice gets bought up!
I guess “Creative Imagination” would have been a good name if I was a marketer as much as someone with a love for design but for those people into advertising… here’s the “Top 5 Most Creative Ads” as posted on TechEBlog today.
Here’s a sampler (from Honda UK)…
Just a quick note on Google’s video ads through AdSense – I’m impressed.
After posting this morning (Probability = 0.0000001%), the blog refreshed, and low-and-behold the AdSense block to the right of the top post (top of column two) was now playing a video. Short and snappy, a self-promotion video for Google on some of the benefits of AdSense, but the first time that I’d seen a video served through AdSense since they launched the more interactive ads.
Niche men’s channel FX plans to show what it calls the first UK advert specially designed to combat viewers using digital recorders to avoid commercials.
The advert for its new drama “Brotherhood” will show a single image on the screen for the entire 30-second slot, and therefore retain its “sales message” when viewed even at the 12-times speeds enabled by Sky+ and other digital recorders, also known as personal video recorders, or PVRs.
Interesting to see if the approach works (via Reuters)
World Cup Access. The World Cup is over, starting to become a distant memory to those who followed it even religiously. So this morning I notice there’s something funny with the stats. A jump from 200 uniques on Sunday to over 1700 on Monday. The value of that increase…. 38 cent 🙂
Of course its great to see one of my blogs pushing up the charts, the crazy spike in vistors throwing it to #3 in the IrishBlogs charts… for now…
Oh… what were they looking for? Seemingly Zidane’s headbutt against Materazzi? Couldn’t even remember where I had mentioned it, my SEO was just that good! So I gave them a video this morning for their efforts…
I’m gripped by World Cup fever, but you’ve got to hand it to Dell for their nice World Cup marketing. Any of you who subscribe to their newsletter will be aware this morning of their World Cup game… and if not, then you can pick it up here. Nice flash based application where the more free kicks you convert, the bigger your savings with Dell, giving you 20-30% off certain products, or the chance to win a few prizes for yourself. If you’ve a few minutes to spare in the office or at home it could be worth giving a crack. (Not an affiliate link by any means!)
Via Steve Rubel’s blog it seems that Nikon have struck up a partnership with Flickr which will see the introduction (for the first time ever) of graphical contextual ads on Flickr by a third party company in relation to their photographs. What it means for users is that they’re going to wind up with a small Nikon logo beside photos they’ve snapped using Nikon gear.
As a Nikon photographer (I’ve been shooting Nikon for years both film and digital) I can’t say that I would mind at all to have a Nikon logo appear along side my photos, or have my work appear in a planned Nikon-only gallery on Flickr. Its something about photographers, liking to show off the gear they shoot with. Mainstream you’re either a Nikon user or a Canon user (out of the main players), so it will be interesting to see if Canon decide to make any similar moves. Think Google would buy Canon and co-brand Google Images?
Text Link Ads (affiliate link) have added a calculator to their service, detailing what you can expect to get from them finance-wise if your ad space sells. Interesting to see the combination of pagerank and content category (e.g. gambling earns more than real estate which earns more than technology). Check it out here (not an affiliate link). Interesting what it throws up…