I love (and hate) advertising. I love it when advertising genuinely makes me laugh, entertains me, is useful to me, makes me think about a brand in a way that is novel or unique, or makes me think about a product or service in a new light.
I hate advertising that is not relevant to my needs, when it simply wastes my time and tries to force me to engage with it (think Youtube ads that you can’t skip).
In my opinion, the best kind of advertising is the kind where you take people’s expectations about something they feel like they know, and something they don’t expect to be surprised by, and irreverently turn it into something new…but familiar. It creates interest, engagement and overall brand lift. And most importantly, it’s memorable.
One of my favorite recent examples come from the Google Analytics team over at Google. For those of you who are familiar with Google Analytics, you know that it is numbers, charts, graphs and the usual boring data about your website.
Boring? Yes, but a very necessary tool if you want your website succeed!
However, it’s not the only analytics software out there and the competition is fierce. So, how do you make a product that is the very essence of boring into something that is memorable and worthy of engagement? A humorous video advertisement might do the trick, like it did for Google Analytics.
