Advertising can virtually take place through any medium, but today the forerunners are through television and the Internet/social media. With all sorts of different technologies available to us, other forms of advertising have nearly become obsolete. So the question is: how do these mediums stay relevant in a culture dominated by technology/digital advertising? When I was deciding what I wanted to write this post on, I did some scanning on the Internet (I know… ) to get some ideas. I came across some really interesting articles that sparked this notion in my head.
The first article I came across was about a billboard in Lima. Lima is situated right next to a desert, and the average rainfall per year is only about 1.1 inches. Being a coastal city, Lima does have one good source of water in the air, which can reach up to 98% saturation some days. Given this information, scientists and advertisers in Lima teamed up to create a billboard that would harness this damp air and convert it into drinking water for the citizens of Lima. The billboard is able to generate about 25 gallons of clean drinking water a day. So not only is the billboard receiving high traffic, but it is also providing the service of clean water.
On a completely different note, across the world in Dubai, Fanta and advertising agency OgilvyOne created the world’s first ‘tastable’ print advertisement. The advertisement encourages the consumer to quite literally tear a piece of the advertisement off and take a taste, in order to promote the new orangey flavor of their soda. Although some may be hesitant to actually taste the advertisement for a number of different reasons (germs, etc.), it is certainly receiving an abundance of attention throughout various other mediums, such as articles, blogs, and word-of-mouth.
And lastly, bringing it back home to the United States, a few weeks ago HBO placed an advertisement in the New York Times promoting their television show “Game of Thrones”. The advertisement covers two full pages and features the shadow of a dragon over ‘fake’ stories that are actually relevant to the show. HBO placed similar advertisements on their own building in Los Angeles and on websites such as IMDB.com.
It is refreshing to see that there are companies out there still using other advertising mediums besides just television and the Internet/social media. Also, I am relieved to see there is still some creativity and thinking outside of the box left in the world. In the end, it will be these advertisements that will be remembered, regardless if they were successful or not, because of their uniqueness.
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